Agam 35 Chhed 02 Bruhatkalpa Sutra

Author(s): K C Lalwani
Publisher: Motilal Banarasidas

Page 19

Foreword
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he belonged to a line called Prăcina or 'ancient, beyond which the implication of the word is anybody's guess. Even the list of church leaders in the Kalpa Sūtra makes a scant mention of him. All we know about him is that Rājagsha, once the capital of the Magadhan Empire, was his seat till he migrated to the south, and that before he did so, he might have on several occasions visited his dear disciple Candra Gupta Maurya, the founder of the Mauryan Empire at Păţaliputra which had then shot up into prominence as the capital city in place of Rajagrha. Later, even Candra Gupta is said to have joined his spiritual master in the south and spent his last days there, throwing out his life in the prescribed Jaina way through a long fast. Bhadrabahu has been called a śrutakevalin, which means that though he was not a Kevalin nor the direct recipient of Sruta knowledge, he knew by heart the 12 Angas, including the twelfth one, Drsțivāda, which is since lost. In anticipation of a great famine in the north, when food would be difficult to get for his monks, we have been told, the celebrated leader preferred to move to the safer south, with many monks following him thither. He settled at Sravana Belgolā in the Mysore State and propounded the religion of the Jainas to a completely alien though receptive audience. It is remarkable that under Bhadrabahu, Jainism became the religion of this region and remained so for about a thousand years after his death. In his absence, the leadership of the Jaina church in the north fell on one Sthūlabhadra who was responsible for convening the first Jaina Council at Păţaliputra where only eleven Jaina Agamas could be collected and put to writing. The twelfth Anga is said to have contained much scientific material and was known only to Bhadrabāhu, and none else, and as Bhadrabahu was not available, it could not be jotted down. Keeping in view the importance of this work, and the fact that Bhadrabāhu was still alive, which must have been known to the church leaders in the north, it would appear somewhat curious that when the texts were being written, no effort should or could have been made either to bring him to the north, or to hold the meeting in the south, or to associate him in some way with the deliberations and maintain touch with him, or at least to get the text of Drşțivāda from him by rushing an emissary to the south. The inability or reluctance of conveners of the Council to take