________________
100
S. B. DEO
of 'Svāmisa Mahakshatrapasa Sodasasa savatsare (42). This sodāsa has been dated by RAYCHAUDHARI to about the 1st cent. A.D.231
Then we come to the group of inscriptions which directly express the regnal years of Kanishka,232 Huvishka 233 and Vasudeva234 (1-2 cent. A.D.).
After the Kushāna epigraphs, there come those which belong to the Gupta period,235 and lastly one which belongs to the eleventh century A.D.236
Without going into the details of the Gupta and later inscriptions, we shall restrict ourselves here with the inscriptions upto the Kushāna period.
The following points may be noted from their study:
(i) No. 47 of LUDERS list237 mentions the setting up of an image at Vodva (?) Thūpa by a female lay-disciple Dină in the year 79.
In this connection, it may be noted that literary, epigraphical and archaeological evidences corroborate each other. As for the literary evidence, the Vyavahāra Bháşya238 refers to a jewelled thūba at Mahurā, due to which ill-feeling spread between the Jainas and the Buddhists, which ultimately resulted in the defeat of the Buddhists. People at Mathurā were said to be devoted to Jina images which they installed in their houses.239 This goes well with the find of several Jina images as well as a Jaina Stupa at Mathurā due to the excavations carried out by scholars like CUNNINGHAM in 1871, GROWSE in 1875 and by Drs. BURGESS and FUHRER in 1887-96. Only "during the season 1889-90 when the Jaina Stūpa and the western Jaina temple belonging to the Digambara sect were exposed, 80 images of Tirthankaras, 120 pieces of stone railings, many miscellaneous sculptures, and numerous inscriptions, of which 17 belong to the Indo-Scythian (Kushāna) period, from the year 5 to the year 86, were exhumed."240 This is enough to give us an idea of the flourishing condition of Jainism in this region in the early centuries of the Christian Era.
231. Op. cit., pp. 446ff.
232. E.I., i, p. 381, No. 1; Ibid., p. 391, No. 19; ASR, III, p. 31, No. 4; E.I., IX; pp. 239-41; LUDERS, 79.
233. E.I., ii, p. 206, No. 25; LUDERS, 80; E.I., X, p. 7; LUDERS, 35, 41, 42, 46, 56. 234. LUDERS List, No. 60, 66, 68, 72, 76. 235. E.I., Vol. ii, p. 198, Nos. XXXVIII-XI. 236. Ibid., No. XLI, p. 198. 237. Also E.I., ii, No. XX, p. 204. 238. 5. 27ff; Brhatkathākosa, 12, 132. 239. Brh. kalp. bha. II, 1774ff. 240. SMITH, The Jaina Stūpa and other Antiqities of Mathura, Intr., p. 3.
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