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History of Jainism with Special Reference to Mathură flourished there for a long time.56 In fact, Kharvela's Hathīgumpha cave inscription is the first definite evidence of the history of Jainism in Orissa.57 There is a reference in the Hathīgumbha inscription to the removal of a jina image from Kalinga to Pataliputra by the Magadhan king Nanda at the time of his invasion of Kalinga.58 The Nanda kings ruled in the fourth century BC. It is, thus, evident that Jainism existed in an established form in Kalinga even before the time of the Nanda rulers of Magadha.59
The Udayagiri and Khandagiri hills of Orissa are strewn with caves for the monks. Some of them contain inscriptions which may go back to the Mauryan age. They provide sufficient evidence that Jainism was in a flourishing condition in Orissa in the second-third century BC.61 The Satghara caves in Bihar and Navmuni and Ananta caves of Orissa contain beautiful friezes and symbols pertaining to the Jaina tīrthamkaras.62 The Rānīgumphā cave sculptures of Orissa exhibit the procession of Pārsvanatha, the twentythird tirthamkara.63 The caves of Orissa contain worn-out images of other tīrthamkaras also.64 In the seventh century AD the Chinese traveller Hiuen Tsang found considerable number of Jainas in Orissa.65 Generally speaking, royal patronage to Jainism in Kalinga lasted up to the sixteenth century AD.66 But it never recovered the position it enjoyed during the reign of Kharvela.67
55. CMHI, II, p. 362.
56. AOIU, p. 418.
57. HJM, p. 92.
58.
59. HJM, p. 93.
60. Ibid.
61. Ibid.
62. Ibid.
63. Ibid.
64. Ibid.
65.
66. 67.
EI, XX, pp. 71-89.
CHAI, III, p. 287.
HJM, p. 97.
CHAI, III, p. 287.
