History of Jainism

Author(s): U K Sharma
Publisher: D K Print World

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Jainism in Mathurā
Kankālī ļīlā also enjoyed a long life. Epigraphic sources reveal that these temples were in existence as late as the eleventh century AD.
One of the fragmentary āyāga-pattas, presently in the collection of Government Museum, Mathurā, contains the word vihāra.172 It is certain that vihāras (monasteries), too, were built for the residence of the Jaina monks.173 Inscriptions reveal that many more Jaina shrines existed at Mathurā during the Kusāna period. These shrines will be outlined in the next chapter. To the architecture of these structures, too, we shall turn in the next chapter.
The Jaina life at Mathurā
THE SPLIT IN THE JAINA CHURCH
We have already stated that the remnants of two Jaina temples were exposed as a result of Fuhrer's excavations at Kankālī Tīlā and that he described one of them as belonging to the Svetāmbara sect and the other to the Digambara sect. The bulk of Jaina inscriptions excavated from Kankālī sīlā belongs to the Kusāna period and has been assigned to the first and the second century AD.174 According to one view, the split which divided the Jainas into the Svetāmbaras and the Digambaras occurred in either Ad 79 or AD 82,175 i.e., in the first century AD, and according to the other, this split occurred in AD 142,176 i.e., in the second century AD. From Fuhrer's statements it appears that during this period the Jainas of Mathurā were also divided into the Svetāmbaras and the Digambaras. Buhler, who translated, interpreted and edited the Jaina inscriptions sent by Fuhrer, 177 expressed the view that the inscriptions from Kankālī Tīlā reveal
171. JS, Introduction, p. 4. 172. JAA, I, p. 52. 173. Ibid., p. 62. 174. EI, X, Appendix, Lüders List, pp. 2 ff; JS, Introduction, pp. 1 ff; OIS), p. 42; LDJC, p.
28; EI, I, p. 371. 175. GD, p. 108; CHAI, III, p. 297 fn. 4; JIR, p. 54; CMHI, II, p. 362. 176. CHAI, III, p. 282; CMHI, II, p. 362. 177. EI, I, p. 371 fn. 2; EI, II, p. 195 fn. 1.
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