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Dr. Charlotte Krause : Her Life & Literature
the castes of the Brāhmaṇa or priestly, and those of the Ksatriya or warriors groups of Indian society, those Baniyā castes too are very ancient institutions, of some of which we hear at as early a date as the sixth century A.D., and even earlier. All of them, the Brāhmana, Ksatriya and Baniyā castes of northern and central India go back, in the last instance, to local communities, bound to certain places of Marwar and Gujarat, the influence of the names of which is, in many cases, still visible in the names of the castes themselves. Thus, the present Modha Brāhmaṇas and Modha Baniyās go back to the town Modherā, the Nāgara Brāhmaṇas and Nāgara Baniyās to the place Vādanagar, the Osavāla Baniyās to the place Osia near Jodhpur, the Śrīmāls to a place named Bhinmāla ( likewise near Jodhpur ), etc., etc. Most of those Brāhmaṇas of old who had originally been Jainas gave up their religion under the influence of Sankarācārya and his school. Thus, the Brāhmaṇa castes have no practical importance in the later history of Jainism. The Kșatriya Jainas, however, gradually gave up their old profession in favour of the more peaceful, and, in the sense of Jainism, less harmful pursuits of trade, and were soon completely absorbed by the old Baniyā castes. We know for certain that, e.g., the present Osavāla, Śrīmāla, and Poravāla castes partly consist of descendants of the Chauhāna, Rāthoda, Chāvadā, Solanki and other famous Rājapūta clans, the names of which still appear in some of the gotra, i.e., family names of modern Baniyā Jainas.
Thus, it is the Baniyā caste alone that have been representing Jainism in India for many centuries. Not only this much, but the greater part of them were even pure Jaina castes originally, as is known 'for certain with reference to the Osavāla, Srimāla, Poravāla, Vayad, Disāvāla, Nāgara, Modha and other Baniyās. Of the rest of the '84 Baniyā castes' of which tradition knows, this much is certain that all of them contained a greater or smaller number of followers of Jainism, many of whom have handed down their names on inscriptions of Jina statues and temples erected on their behalf. It was only since the 16th and 17th centuries that, owing to the decline
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