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Bhadrabāhu and the Sravanabelgola Kşetra
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Sravanabe!goļa gains credibility. And this tradition is very persistent indeed. Inscriptions from the 7th century AD mentioning Bhadrabāhu and the Migration are found at Sravanabelgola. P. B. Desai writes that the "earliest epigraphical record that testifies to the eminence of Sravana Be!goļa as a Jaina holy place is approximately assigned to the 7th century A.D." S.B. Deo says that" inscriptions testify to the sallekhana-s of numerous people at Sravanabelgoļa as early as the 7th and 8th centuries. When the Jainas suffered persecution at the hands of the Srivaişğava-s in the early years of the Vijayanagara period, king Bukka Rāya I had this stopped and ordered the Vaişpava-s to place a guard of 20 men to watch over the Gommațeśvara statue at Sravaṇabelgo!a. 13 The fact that so many inscriptions concerning not only Sravanabelgoļa itself but also other places and events in the history of Jainism in the south are found at Sravanabelgoļa seems to stress the importance the kşetra had for the Jaina community in South India.
Another feature of the tradition is that the emperor Candragupta Maurya abdicated the throne to become a monk and follow Bhadrabahu in the Migration, and again the evidence adduced consists of inscriptions and literary sources, which mention Bhadrabāhu and Candragupta together. At a first glance, this bringing together of two celebrities in one story sheds suspicion on the whole tradition, and that the last śruta kevalin would have died in the presence of only this emperor from the north-east of India, while the other 12000 sådhu-s apparently had disappeared completely, seems too romantic to be true. But concerning the last years of Candragupta's reign and the end of his life we know extremely little. The British historian V. A. Smith wrote: "The evidence cannot be described as conclusive, but after much consideration I am disposed to accept the main facts as affirmed by tradition...... His (Candragupta's) abdication is an adequate explanation of his disappearance at such an early age. Similar renunciations of royal dignity are on record, and the twelve years' famine is not incredible. In short, the Jain tradition holds the field, and no alternative account exists." There is no evidence, but neither is there any evidence that the essentials of the tradition are wholly untrue.
Some controversy has arisen over whether Bhadrabāhu brought Jainism to the south, i.e., whether Jainism was not present in the south prior to his arrival. Desai believed Jainism was there carlier, and gives three main reasons for his view : a) Bhadrabāhu had to be sure he and his followers would be welcome in the land of their destination : hence there already were Jainas in southern Karnataka and Tamilnād; b) the Buddhist chronicle Mahāvamsa mentions the presence of Jainas on Ceylon in the 4th century B. C., and this suggests that Jainism had already spread throughout the south by that time; c) Jainism reached Tamilnad before the Vedic faith did, as is suggested by early Tamil works such as the Tolkāppiyam and the Tirukkura". Desai furthermore argues the historicity of a certain Jaina King in the Andhra Desa, basing his unconvincing reconstruction
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