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worship was firmly established among the Jainas in this period, and the monks were indirectly encouraging the people to have images and stūpas.
We have seen up till now that by the end of the second century A.D., Jainism spread in Kalinga, Magadha, Malwa, Mathura and Ujjain. Besides these regions, its existence in Gujarat and Kathiawad is evidenced by the inscription of Jayadāman's grandson in a cave at Junagadh which refers to Kevalajnāna, a technical term denoting omniscience among the Jainas.253
Before, however, we go to western India and Gujarat, we shall see the state of Jainism under the powerful Gupta empire. It would be better for us to treat Gujarat, western India and Rajputana separately as they have long been known to be centres of Jainism.
The Gupta Empire :
The period from the extinction of the Kushānas upto the advent of the Guptas is one about which we have scanty material not only regarding Jainism alone but also pertaining to the history of India as a whole.
The rule of the Guptas has been looked upon by many scholars to be the period of the consolidation of Brāhmanism.254
It would, however, be wrong to suppose that the Guptas were fanatical Vaishnavites. On the contrary, it would be better to call them the best exanıples of religious toleration because they did not seem to suppress other faiths.
This tolerant spirit of the Guptas has been evidenced both by literary as well as by epigraphic corroboration. For instance, the Kuvalayamālā of Udyotanasūri255 (s. 700) refers in its introductory verses to a certain Torarāya and his guru Harigupta belonging to the dynasty of the Guptas. This Tora king has been identified with the Hūņa king Toramāna (death, first decade of the 6th cent. A.D.). Harigupta also has been identified with the Harigupta of a copper coin bearing the name, by CUNNINGHAM. It may therefore, be said that the Guptas were not certainly anti-Jaina.
This can further be evidenced by a few epigraphs belonging to the reigns of Kumāragupta and Skandagupta which go to prove that Jainism also flourished modestly side by side with Brāhmanism and Buddhism.
253. E.I., XVI, 239; LUDERS' List, 966: Date lost. 254. DANDEKAR, A Hist. of the Guptas, pp. 185-86. 255. Article of JINAVIJAYA in JSS, III, pp. 169ff.
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