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Jainism in Mathurā
exactly the same division of the Jainas is contained in a list in the Kalpasūtra, one of the canonical works of the Svetāmbaras, Buhler concluded that the Jaina community of Mathurā belonged to the Svetāmbara sect. 186
Buhler derived many wrong conclusions from his study of the Jaina inscriptions discovered at Mathurā. We have already stated that the earliest of Jaina inscriptions discovered at Mathurā belongs to the second century BC, and the last to the eleventh century AD. No one of these inscriptions contains hint of the division of the Jaina community into the Svetāmbara sect and the Digambara sect at Mathurā.187 The split in the Jaina Church was a gradual process,188 and, if there was a split at Mathurā too, it at least did not find manifestation in the Jaina inscriptions of this city.
Fuhrer had stated that the inscribed images of tīrthamkara Padmaprabhanātha dated vs 1038 and vs 1134 were discovered from the central temple, and this belonged to the Svetāmbara sect.189 But these images are nude.190 In fact, all tīrthamkara images of the Kuşāņa period discovered at Mathurā are nude.191 The nudity of these images has led scholars to two conclusions. Cunningham opines that the nudity of the jina images of the Kusāna period is indicative of the fact that they belonged to the Digambara sect.192 On the other hand, B.C. Bhattacharya and U.P. Shah hold that the difference between the images of the Svetāmbaras and the Digambaras in respect of drapery and nudity did not exist in the Kuşāņa period. 193
The Kalpasūtra is believed to have been composed by Bhadrabāhu around 300 BC. The Jainas were not divided into the Svetāmbara sect and the
186. OISJ, 42-3. 187. See EI, X, Appendix, pp. 2 ff; also see LDJC, p. 28. 188. ERE, VII, p. 473; AOIU, p. 416; JSS, p. 45; LDJC, p. 28. 189. A. Fuhrer, op. cit., p. 106; JS, Introduction, p. 6. 190. JS, Introduction, p. 6. 191. ASIAR, III, pp. 45-6; SIJA, p. 11. 192. Ibid., pp. 45-6. 193. JI, p. 42; SIJA, p. 11.
