Comprehensive History of Jainism Volume II

Author(s): Aseem Kumar Chaterjee
Publisher: Firma KLM Pvt Ltd

Page 69

JAINISM IN NORTH INDIA
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1133 A.D.) is known to have some connexion with Jainism. According to the KB, 440 the Kharatara Acārya Jinavallabha was honoured by this king and donated, on the advice of that Jain monk, a large sum of money for the two Jain temples of Citrakūța (Chitor). We have now a Jain epigraph*+1 of the reign of this king, found from Bhojpur in Raisen district. The epigraph is incised on the pedestal of an image of Pārsvanātha and is dated in V.S. 1157, corresponding to 1100 A.D. It appears from the epigraph that the person called Cillaņa, belonging to Vemaka family, was a devout Jain. He is represented further as the son of Śreshțhin Rāma and grandson of one Nemicandra, who appears to be identical with the monk of the same name, mentioned in the Bhojpur epigraph of the time of Bhoja I, which has already been discussed.
It appars that even in later times, Dhārā was great centre of Jainism. The father of the Digambara poet Āsādhara viz. Sallakshana was surely patronised by the later Paramāra king Vindhyavarman. This is known from a passage of the colophon of Ašādhara's work Sagara-Dharmamệta*43. The poet Aśādhara himself was a prolific Jain writer and we have several dates #48 for him. These dates are V.S. 1285, 1292, 1296 and 1300. Ašādhara was in the good books of the Paramāra kings and, we are told, that he was given the title of Sarasvatiputra*** by Arjunavarman (1211-16 A.D.). Most of his works were, however, not written at Dhārā, but a place, near it, called Nalakacchapura in his colophons, which is identified by Premi*45 with Nalachā, some 20 miles from modern Dhar, and which still has a few Jain temples and can boast of a number of Jain adherents. Ašādhara wrote his works in the Neminātha Caitya of Nalakacchapura. This particular place is also mentioned in a Jain work called Karmavipakaţika, 46 which was written at Nalakacchapura in V.S. 1295 during the reign of Jaitugideva, the Paramara king, who ruled from 1239 to 1255 A.D. Āsādhara has mentioned both