Comprehensive History Of Jainism

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

Page 85

JAINISM IN MATHURĀ
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case, we will have to accept the fact that in Mathurā in those days, males accepted even females as their gurus, but Lüders, 167 it appears, takes Uggahini to have been a male. Another undated inscription 168 is of some importance since it mentions Kaniyasika kula of the Vāraņa gaņa. This particular kula, as we have already noted, is mentioned in an inscription of year 50, although the reading there is not so clear. Another interesting inscription 169 records the dedication of an image of Vardhamāna by Jayā, daughter of Navahasti, daughter-in-law of Grahasena, mother of the brothers Sivasen Devasena, and Sivadeva. The monk Arya Balatrata and his pupil Arya Sandhi, belonging to the Ucenāgarī sākhā are also mentioned. These two monks, as we have already seen, are mentioned in an inscription of year 25.
R.D. Banerji decoded an interesting image inscription 170 which mentions a monk of Adhicchatra (i.e., Ahicchatra) belonging to Petavāmika kula and Vajanagarī sākhā. It was taken by him to be an inscription from Ramnagar, ancient Ahicchatra, but Lüders! is not prepared to believe this. In any case, this inscription certainly shows that Ahicchatra was not immune from Jaina influence in the Kuşāna period.
We have a few inscriptions of the post-Kuşāņa period found from the Mathurā region, and these are dealt with in a subsequent chapter. Indeed, as V.S. Agrawala has pointed out, 172 hundreds of Jaina sculptures belonging to Gupta and early mediaeval period have been discovered from Mathurā, and a number of those will be considered in the chapter on Jaina Iconography.
The above analysis of the contents of most of the Mathurā inscriptions of the early period provides abundant proof of the tremendous popularity of Jainism from the second century BC onwards. We have already observed, on the basis of the evidence of Vimalasūri's first-century work the Paumacariyam, that Jainism which had suffered a setback after the Nandas, was revived by some Jaina saints, who preached both at Säketa and Mathurā. These inscriptions of Mathurā show that very few among Jaina devotees came from the so-called aristocratic families. No inscription from Mathurā yields the name of any Brāhmaṇa patron of Jainism. It is extremely likely that members of this particular caste were much more interested in the sacrificial cult and diverse theistic religions than in either Buddhism or Jainism. Mathura, we must remember, was a stronghold of the Bhāgavata cult and even in the second century AD, when Jainism