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A COMPREHENSIVE HISTORY OF JAINISM
of the Vividhatīrthakalpa of Jinaprabha. I also opine that the temple of Suvrata at Säketa was, in all probability, built before 300 Bc. It is quite natural that the Jainas should be eager to build shrines in famous cities connected with Brahmanical culture and religion, I have already said that Jainism itself originated by 800 BC at Vārāṇasī, one of the greatest cities of ancient India, and during the time of Mahāvīra, became popular at Vaiśālī, Rājagļha, Srāvastī, Kaušāmbi, and a few other towns.
An inscription assignable on the palaeographic grounds to the first century BC, found at Pabhosa near Kaušāmbi, is indicative that the Jaina monks living at that famous town enjoyed royal patronage. The two short inscriptions found at Pabhosa refer to the cave (lena) excavated by Aşādhasena, the king of Adhicchatra (Ahicchatra), who was the maternal uncle of Bahasatimitra or Brhaspatimitra. This Asādhasena' seems to be a local ruler of the north Pancāla region and is generally dated to in the first century BC. According to Führer," the inscriptions refer to the Kāśyapiya monks, which may mean monks belonging to the school of Vardhamāna Mahāvīra, who was a Kāśyapa Ksatriya. But D.C. Sircar rejects this reading and opines that the inscriptions refer to the monks of Ahicchatra. That Pabhosa cave was sacred to the Jainas from the pre-Christian times is testified to by the discovery of Jaina images and carvings from there, where three standing Jaina images, cut in rocks are also to be found. The Pabhosa cave was visited by Yuan Chwang in the seventh century AD. There is little doubt that a number of Jaina monks lived in this cave in the pre-Christian period and naturally most of them were residents of Kaušāmbi, which is only two miles from there, and has yielded a number of Jaina antiguities of the Kusāna period.lo Kausāmbi, is still looked upon as a holy place by the devout Jainas. It was the birthplace of Padmaprabha, the sixth Tīrthamkara. Major R.D. Basu in 1908 discovered an inscription" of the year 12 of king Sivamitra which mentions three monks, Baladása, Sivamitra, and Sivapālita. R.D. Banerji believes that this inscription is dated in the Kaniska era of ad 78, and therefore its date corresponds to AD 90. As late as 1834, a small Digambara temple was built at Kaušāmbi."2
We have already seen that Lord Mahāvīra himself was probably responsible for the introduction of the new Nirgrantha religion at Kaušāmbi during the rule of the celebrated king Udayana, probably in early fifth century BC. The reference to the Kaušāmbikā sākhā,
