Arya Bhadrabahu

Author(s): M A Dhaky
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M. A. Dhaky
33. See the "Introduction," Epigraphia Carnatica, Vol.II, Institute of Kannada Studies, University of Mysore, Mysore 1973, pp.ixxiv-ixxvi.
34. These have been completely ignored by all of the writers on Bhadrabahu who exclusively used southern sources. (The Digambara writers, understandably, recognize only Digambara månya sources.)
Jambu-jyoti
35. Some three decades ago, U.P. Shah, in the course of a personal discussion, had conveyed to me his thinking about interpreting this word. I here have followed it. 36. The concerned verse is as follows:
जसभद्द तुंगिय वंदे संभूयं चेव माठरं । भबाहुं य पाइणं शुलभ च गोयमं । नन्दीसूत्र १.६.२४.
(Ed. Punyavijaya muni, Jaina-Agama-Granthamālā, Vol. 1, Mumbai [Bombay] 1968, p. 6). Also see the Tirthavakālika-prakirṇaka.
37. After all, kharvata means a relatively smaller settlement. And when it is prefixed by the term 'Dāsī,' it was an humble place, indeed of lesser consequence.
38. Vaḍda Aradhane, pp. 49-50.
39. Bṛhadkathākoša, p. 317.
The great historian R.C. Majumdar, apparently on the basis of the sākhā names of the Godāsa-gana, had reached the conclusion that Bhadrabahu hailed from Bengal. As it happened, his relevant published works currently are not handy. 41. Tämraliptikā, Kotivarṣīyä, and Pundravardhanikā emanate from Tämralipti, Kotivarsa, and Pundravardhana, as earlier inferred here; and all of these towns are located in Bengal under their modern derivative appelations.
Recent researches tend to bring down the date of Gautama Buddha by about a century, toward c. B.C. 400-383, with a few years plus or minus. If this date finally holds, then Arhat Vardhamana's date must also slide down and stabilize at c. B.C. 415-400 since, according to the Pāli sources, he predeceased Buddha. This date does not seem incompatible with the computable time-brackets for the successors of Vardhamana. The traditionally held B.C. 527 as the date of Vardhamana's nirvana, of course, is totally unrealistic on several counts, just as it upsets several firmly established historical dates, synchronisms, and timebrackets, an issue that cannot be dealt with in this article.
43. While citing the actual past instances of friars who had suffered from one or the other type of the 22 pariṣahas or visiting sufferings noted in the agamas, for