Arya Bhadrabahu

Author(s): M A Dhaky
Publisher: Z_Nirgranth_Aetihasik_Lekh_Samucchay_Part_1_002105.pdf and Nirgranth_Aetihasik_Lekh_Samucchay_Part_2

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M. A. Dhaky
Jambū-jyoti
Ujjeni (Ujjayani) which is next visited by Bhadrabāhu, alongwith a large group of friars. There he sojourned in some park. Interestingly, Bhadrabahu is qualified by the commentator as 'Caturdaśa-pūrvadhara' and not 'astānga-naimitika' in contrast to the Sravanabelagola inscription of c. A.D. 600. King Samprati-Candragupta visits Bhadrabāhu and embraces the vows of the (Nirgrantha) lay-follower. One day. Bhadrabāhu, during his almsbegging tour, entered a house where a child in a swing said: "Revered Sir, go away, go away!" He took these words as omenic of the onset of a draught: on asking for how many years, the child, by gesture, indicated the figure 12. Whereupon Bhadrabāhu assembled the disciples and announced the visitation soon of 12 years famine and proposed to migrate to South. The same night the King dreamt 16 strange and prognosticative dreams, their interpretation by Bhadrabāhu leading to the same conclusion, of the oncoming eventuality of the prolonged draught. (The lengthy narrative relating to this imaginary event is omitted here.) The King, now knowing about the impending calamity, joined the Order of the Mendicants. Bhadrabāhu next sent a message to the mendicants in Madhyadeśa to migrate to South. And he, with his new disciple Samprati-Candragupta and eight thousand friars moved toward the Southern country. On the way, when they reached Katavappu (Katavapra, Candragiri in Sravanabelgola), he sensed that his end is near. Whereupon he sent the sangha under the leadership of his other (arguably senior) disciple Viśākha to the Tamil country. He next clambered the hillock Katavapra with SampratiCandragupta, undertook the rite of avamodarya and sanyasta, eventually passed away and, was born as god in the Brahmakalpa heaven with the life span of ten sāgaropamas'. Samprati-Candragupra stayed on at Kațavapra, and, as for alms, he was eating what a sylvan deity of that area offered. After 12 years, when the news reached that the drought in Madhyadeśa had ended, Visakhācārya returned from south to Katavapra advised SampartiCandragupta not to accept food from a deity, and proceeded toward north. Samprati-Candragupta who, staying as he did for all those years close to the (commemorative) shrine of Bhadrabāhu on the hillock, eventually passed away and (he, too,) was born in the Brahmakalpa with the life span of ten sägaropamas.
Forgetting the imaginary elements which are innate to the Indian narrative class of writings in ancient and medieval India Jaina being