Arya Bhadrabahu

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

Page 31

138
M. A. Dhaky
Jambū-jyoti
course due to the same cause, though it likewise does not identify them. This statement, as regards the four disciples of Bhadrabahu who died by suffering from intense cold, is broadly confirmed by a notice in the Prakīrnaka class of ägamic work, the Maranasamadhi, a pre-medieval compilatory work, which absorbed the versified content of eight earlier texts, largely of pre-Gupta (Mitra-Saka-Kusāna) date, within it. Now, the curni calls these latter four disciples as of vanika or mercantile community. Clearly, then, these four unnamed disciples were different from the former four named and, as their names suggest, of brahmin extraction.
5) Bhadrabāhu's senior disciple Godāsa as well as the latter's disciples, too, must have hailed from Bengal, as indicated by the appellations of the sākhās or branches of mendicants that afterwards had emanated from them, namely the Tāmraliptikā, the Kotivarsīyā, the Paundravardhanikā, and the Däsikharvatiká. Of these, at least the first three definitely were named after the then existing ancient towns in Bengal.
6) The authorship of the three āgama-category of works, namely the Daśāśrutaskandha, the Kalpa, the Vyavahära, as also of the Niryuktis traditionally is attributed to Bhadrabāhu in the Svetāmbara sect. Of these, the first three texts, afterwards classified under the Chedasútra category that dwells on the rules for ācāra or monastic discipline, the Kalpa alone and, plausibly, for its larger part (which seems ancient and largely uniform in style), may have been his work. The Niryuktis seemingly are as late as early sixth century A.D., of course partly based on older material. (The Logassasutta induded within the Avasyaka compendium is a hymn to the 24 Jinas and ascribed to Bhadrabāhu by Śīlācārya in his Ācārānga-vrtti [latter half of the 9th cent. A.D.). However, as I elsewhere have suggested, it could have been the inaugural hymn of the Prathamānuyoga of Ārya śyāma 1 (c. 1st cent. B.C -A.D.), which was the earliest work to notice the 24 tīrthankaras, giving as it also did their biographical (in most cases of course overtly fictitious) sketches.) The Svetāmbaras also attribute the famous magical and very popular hymn, the Uvasaggahara-thotta (Upasargahara-stotra), composed in the Mahārāstrī Prākṣta, to Bhadrabāhu. (In the Digambara sect, it is believed to be a composition by Mānatungācārya, c. fate 6th-early 7th A.D., an equally erroneous and hence untenable ascription) That work, as is obvious by its language, style, content, and spirit seems a composition by