Comprehensive History Of Jainism

Author(s): Aseem Kumar Chatterjee
Publisher: Munshiram Manoharlal Publishers Pvt Ltd

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JAINISM IN MATHURA
to be remembered for this. His wife, 'Kośiki', also probably belonged to an aristocratic Kṣatriya family. Both, as this inscription indicates, were devoted worshippers of Tīrthamkara Vardhamana. Another inscription, also written in Prākṛta, mentions this individual and gives his real name as Indrapala. 10 This inscription contains the expression arahatapujaye, which once more testifies to Gotiputra's leaning toward the Jaina religion. It is very significant that, unlike most of the early Jaina devotees, mentioned in the Mathură inscriptions, this person was a Kṣatriya nobleman. Like Khāravela of Kalinga he was a valiant soldier, but his martial zeal did not prevent him from falling in love with a religious system which was basically based on the concept of non-violence. Non-violence is not cowardice, and the example of Gotiputra shows that a person believing in non-violence could, for the sake of his country, transform himself. Both the inscriptions mentioning Gotiputra are dated to the second half of the first century BC by Bühler and Fleet.11
We will now discuss some other pre-Kuṣāņa Jaina inscriptions of Mathura. A majority of such inscriptions are undated, though a few have dates. The most important of the latter, is the inscription which mentions the Śaka Mahākṣatrapa Śoḍāsa12 and gives us the date 72 which should be referred to the era of 58 BC. It should therefore correspond to AD 14. This Mahākṣatrapa was the son of Mahākṣatrapa Rañjuvula who had apparently conquered Mathura before the beginning of the Christian era. Gotiputra was probably one of his adversaries. Both Rañjuvula and Soḍāsa are mentioned in the wellknown Mathura Lion Capital inscriptions13 and also the Mora Well inscription" which refers to the Vṛṣṇi heroes. Both father and son probably nurtured equal deference for Brahmanical Hinduism, Buddhism, and Jainism. The inscription under discussion records, after an invocation to the Arhat Vardhamana, the setting up of an Aryavati 15 by Amohini, the Kochi (= Kautsī), a female lay disciple of the ascetics (samanasāvikā), together with her sons Pālaghoṣa, Pothaghosa, and Dhanaghosa for the worship of Arhats.
Another interesting early inscription from Mathura records the setting up of a shrine (devikula) of the Arhat, an āyāgasabhā, a reservoir (prapa), and stone slabs (silapaṭa) in the Arhat temple (arahatayatana) of the Nigathas (Nirgranthas) by a few courtesans (ganikā). Regarding the names of the latter there is some confusion. According to Bhagwanlal Indraji, at least four of them, namely Nādā, Vāsā, Dandā and Leṇaśobhikā are mentioned in this inscrip