Book Title: Chanakya Explored in Jaina Literature
Author(s): Nalini Joshi
Publisher: Firodaya Prakashan

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Page 249
________________ 239 In spite of all the efforts of excessive Jainification, Cāṇakya's brahminhood and vedic legacy is quite evident. We should give a long rope to the Jainas in this matter considering the justice given by them to the personality of Caṇakya. The last remarks: The full biography of Caṇakya from the birth to death; his personal characteristics; his contribution to the ancient Indian polity ; his life flooded with hundreds of details and particularly his timeslaught mentioned as the 4th century B.C. - is an apt answer given to the doubts raised by some of the scholars about the authenticity and historicity of Caṇakya and his Arthaśāstra by the Jaina tradition. Accepting the limits of the literary sources for establishing the historicity of the happenings, an impartial researcher has to admit that the Jaina-portrait of Caṇakya is very convincing except the Jainification because they have skilfully filled it in the religio-sociocultural framework of comtemporary India. In other words we can say that Caṇakya's portrait painted by the Jainas is the solemn homage paid to this great personality. For the last two years, I was deeply engrossed in exploring, discovering and revealing all the conspicuous and hidden details of Caṇakya documented in the Prakrit and Sanskrit literature of the Jainas, with my enthusiastic and dedicated research team. At the end, it is our confident opinion that the branch of Kautilyan studies will remain always incomplete if we neglect the valuable literary sources of the Jainas. Or, in a more generalised way, we can say that any issue concerned to ancient India should be observed, examined and paraphrased in the broader light of the contemporary literature written

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