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HISTORY OF JAINA MONACHISM
115 capital of the Nandas,330 tend to suggest that Deccan also formed a part of the Nanda Empire. However, we have no other evidence either literary or archaeological, of this period to show that these kings who had taken away the Jina image from Kalinga and whose ministers according to the Jaina evidence were Jainas, spread Jainism in the Deccan as well.
Coming to the Mauryas, we have the traditional account of the migration of Candragupta with Bhadrabāhu, to the south. It is difficult to say what path this famous pair of guru-sisya adopted in their journey towards the south. It may be that they could have made a halt in the Deccan had they found that the Deccan rather than Sravana Belgoļa, was a favourable ground for Jainism. Even though the Gacchācāravrtti331 says that Bhadrabāhu and Varāhamihira stayed for some time at Paitthāņa (Paithan), it is not clear which Bhadrabāhu is meant.
The same want of evidence is to be found in the reign of the great Aśoka. Even though Deccan seems to have been a part of his empire, the state neither of Jainism nor that of Buddhism in the Deccan can be clearly visualised. If at all anything could be said, it is that the Mauryan Emperor was more liberal towards Buddhism as is perhaps attested by the Buddhist caves in the Deccan (3rd cent. B.C.), rather than towards Jainism.
Jaina literary evidence, as seen elsewhere, credits the spread of Jainism from Ujjain to the Deccan and to the southern countries to Samprati,332 the grandson of Asoka. But here also, we have no other evidence to corroborate this Jaina tradition.
The successors of the Mauryas, viz., the Sungas, do not seem to have held their sway over the Deccan, and until we come to the Sātavāhanas we have no definite material regarding the history of the Deccan in general.
Regarding the king Sālivāhaņa the Jaina literary tradition says that this king ruled at Paitthāna. It seems that Ārya Kālaka tried to influence the king inasmuch as the former changed the date of the pajjosana festival from the fifth to the fourth day so as to suit the convenience of the king who was busy on the fifth day.333 Epigraphical records, however, tend to show that the Sātavāhanas were not Jains, but were Brāhmanical as is proved by the sacrificial record at Naneghat in Poona district, and not antagonistic to Buddhism as is evidenced by the inscriptions in the caves at Näsik.
330. Quoted by NAIK, A.V., Arch. of the Deccan (Mss.), p. 46. 331. p. 93.
332. These countries were Andhra, Dravida, Kudukka (Coorg), Mahārāsýra, and Surāstra: Byh. kalp. bhä., Vol. III, 3278-3289.
333. Prabandhacintamani, I, p. 17; BHANDARKAR, Early Hist. of the Deccan, pp. 29-31,
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