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The Hathigumpha Inscription and the Bhabru Edict
The redaction of the Jain Canon followed a more devious route. There is a tradition that there was a twelve-year famine in Magadha about 150 years after the nirvana of Mahavira when a portion of the Samgha migrated to South India under the leadership of Bhadrabahu I, the last of the Śruta-kevalins. After the famine a Council was convened by the members of the Samgha who had stayed behind in the north, for the restoration of the sacred canon, as so many monks who were the repositories of the sacred lore, had been dead. The representatives from the south did not join it, nor they accepted the Canon so compiled by the ascetics of the north who had become slack in ascetic practices to some extent due to the exigencies of famine. Thus followed the Schism as the Digambaras and the Svetāmbaras. The Svetambaras finally redacted the Canon as preserved with them at the Paṭaliputra Council, under Devardhigani at Vallabhi in M.E. 983 (AD 456).1 In course of time, as passed through word of mouth it was affected by the regional dialects to some extent, but in essence retained an archaic character in language. This was termed as Ardha-Magadhi. It appears to be the Magadhi which was largely influenced by Śauraseni. The Samgha that travelled to South India, redacted their procanonical literature in the Prakrit that they had brought with them. A.N. Upadhye calls it Jain Sauraseni.2 He has traced common verses in the South Indian Digambara pro-canonical literature and the Svetambara Ardha-Magadhi Agama literature, and has concluded that it proves their common heritage. The redaction of the Digambara literature started with Kunda-kunda who succeeded to pontificate in 8 BC. He wrote in Prakrit (Jain Śauraseni) 84 Pahuḍas.4 The Svetāmbaras took
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1. A.N. Upadhye's Introduction to Pravacanasara, p. 177; Winternitz, op. cit., pp. 431-35.
Upadhye, op. cit., pp. 115-17.
Ibid., pp. 113-15, 123.
Jain, J.P., The Jaina Sources of the History of Ancient India, pp. 12026.
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