________________
90
A COMPREHENSIVE HISTORY OF JAINISM
the celebrated city of Vidiśā. We have two Jaina image inscriptions both of which are now preserved in the local museum at Vidiśā. 82 These are not only important for the history of Jainism but also in the political history of the Gupta period. Both these inscriptions refer to 'Mahārājādhirāja Rāmagupta'. As the title indicates, this Rāmagupta was a paramount sovereign and not merely a local ruler Coins of Rāmagupta are already known.83 In the official Gupta records the name of Rāmagupta is understandably absent. The play Devicandragupta of Visakhadatta, which is preserved only in fragments, delineates Rāmagupta as the successor of Samudragupta, and a weak monarch who did not hesitate to offer his wife to the Saka king of Ujjayini. His younger brother Candragupta, by a clever stratagem, succeeded in killing the Saka king. 81 Later, we are told, he also killed his brother and married his wife Dhruvadevi. The discovery of the Jaina inscriptions testify that Rāmagupta is not a product of the imagination but Samudragupta's actual successor We have already referred to his coins, and now these inscriptions engraved on the pedestals of Puspadanta and Candraprabha show that he was responsible for the construction of those images of the Jaina Tīrthamkaras. This he did on the advice of Celukșamaņa, the son of Golakyāntā and pupil of Acārya Sarppasena Ksamana, the grand-pupil of Candra Kşamācārya-kşamaņa-śramana, who was a pānipātrika, i.e., one who used the hollows of his palms as an alms and drinking bowl. The celebrated śivārya, the author of the Bhagavatī-ārādhanā, as we will see later, calls himself pāņidalabhoi, which probably indicates that like him Candra was a Digambara monk. 85 This inscription, therefore, indicates that Rāmagupta had some genuine respect for the Jainas. The characters of the inscriptions agree closely with that of the Allahabad prasasti and I am not aware of the existence of any other Mahārajādhiraja Rāmagupta of the fourth century AD.
Another inscription 6 found from Udaygiri near Vidiśā and dated in the year 106 of the Gupta era corresponding to AD 426 of the reign of Kumāragupta refers to the erection of an image of Pārsva by Sankara, a disciple of Gośarman, who was a disciple of Bhadrācārya of Aryakula. The inscriptions of the time of Rāmagupta, Kumāragupta's uncle, as we have already seen testifies to the popularity of Jainism in the Vidišā region. Sankara, we further learn from the same inscription, was formerly a warrior but later accepted the Jaina religion. These inscriptions go far to prove that Vidiśā was a
