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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Arya Bhadrabāhu
143
responsible for the propagation of Nirgrantha-darśana in South, particularly and at first in the Tamil country and some time after in Andhradeśa 114 There may have been more than one group of mendicants that migrated from the northern (essentially eastern) to southern India'is, indeed progressively so in different ancient centuries.
Bhrājisnu, as well as Harisena, talk about the events in north India during the famine as well as what happened after Viśākhäcärya returned to north India in post-famine time. They are, of course, not only poorly informed but are overtly sectarian and the South affiliated sources posterior to these two earliest ones only repeat what the above-noted two authors said and the further additions of details they made only betray their very strong sectarian bias with increased hate and venom. (I intend to deal with that part of the storey, of what happened during the draught years and in post-Bhadrabāhu times in north India, as perceived by medieval and postmedieval Digambara writers, in a future paper.) In Karnataka, the Nirgranthas eventually may have moved from western Andhradeśa as well as from north western Tamilnadu and settled there only in the late third and early fourth century of the Common Era as indicated by the earliest charters from the lower Gangavāời and the Kadamba country that predate the known Śravanabelgoļa inscriptions116. The principalities of the Gangas and the Kadambas by then already had been founded. No earlier Jaina vestiges including epigraphs, or literary notices either, between c. B.C. 300 and A.D. 300 so far are known from Karnataka*
*
There, of course, are reported a few grotto inscriptions of c. the 2nd or 3rd century A.D. mentioning the death (by sallekhanā rites) of the (Nirgrantha) mendicants in lower southern Gangavādi.