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JUNE, 1889.]
BOOK NOTICE.
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the Digambaras and of their tradition regarding chased in 1883-84, there does not seem to be the Jaina literature; while the extracts from a anything new or very important. In making number of Prasastis furnish a considerable his extracts, PP. 144-155, from Dharmasagara's number of new dates and statements regarding Pravachanapariksha or Kupakshaka usikåditya, the succession of the teachers of the sect. In Dr. Bhandarkar seems to have overlooked between we find also other valuable historical and that Professor Weber has published an elaborate literary notes, such as, pp. 104-105, those on the treatise on the same work in the Transactions of Paraméra princes of Malvå in the thirteenth the Berlin Academy. A great portion of the century, under whom that most fertile author extracts, p. 138 ff., from Samayasundara's comAbadhara wrote his numerous works, and thosementary on the Kalpasutra had already been on the Rashtrakatas Amoghavarsha and Akála- I given by Professor Jacobi in the notes to his varsha, p. 121; Bee also Corrigenda, p. II. It is edition of the Kalpastra. impossible for me to notice in detail all the The concluding pages of the Second Report are important points in this portion of the Report, but directed against a remark which I made in my I strongly recommend its study to scholars review on Dr. Bhåndárkar's First Report, ante, interested in the religious history of India. In Vol. XIV. p. 62. I there pointed out that it was connection with his abstracts, Dr. Bhåndarkar not safe to refer every date in the MSS. to which gives us also his views on the origin and the the word Sarvat is prefixed to the Vikrama era, history of the Jaina sect. Like Professor Jacobi, because at least some cases occurred in which myself, and other Sanskritists, he denies, p. 102 the word referred to the Saka era, and I gave and p. 125, that the Jainas are a Buddhist sect, and two instances to the point. Dr. Bhandarkar admits that their founder may have been a con- answers that the meaning of the word Samvat temporary of Sakyamuni-Gautama. But he holds admits of no dispute, and during the last five that Jainism as a system is later than Buddhism, centuries has always been used to denote the that it was remodelled about the first century of Vikrama era. He maintains that, if the usual our era, after the men who knew the original interpretation of the word Samvat leads to wrong doctrines by heart, had died, and that it received historical results, the cause must be a mistake of a new set of sacred books about the year 139 A.D. the writer, and he suggests that the writer may He thinks that the sect must have been unim. have copied a real old Samvat date from his portant up to that period, and adds that this view original, and have added some historical note is corroborated by the scarcity of ancient Jaina regarding his own time, or that he may have put inscriptions. It would lead me too far if I were in a wrong date by a slip of the pen. With to enter on a discussion of these views and the respect to one of my cases, that of the MS. of arguments by which they are supported. I will the Idar copy of the Mahabhishya, he thinks only say this much, that I am glad to note our that it will not do to take Samvat 1514 as equi. agreement as to one of the main points, - the valent to 1592 A.D., because Rað Narayanadasa independent origin of the Jaina religion. With lost his throne in 1576, and Mr. K. Forbes imme. respect to the other points, on which I must diately after speaks of his successor Viramadeva. differ from Dr. Bhåndarkar, I will add that the Dr. Bhandarkar then goes on to prove his main Asoka inscriptions, which speak of " countless point by giving a number of Sari vat, i.e. Vikrama-religious communities consisting of ascetics and Samvat dates which in MSS. occur together with householders," mention by name only three, the Saka dates, and by quoting a passage from a comBuddhists, the Nigavithas or Jainas, and the mentary on the Bhúsvatíkarana, composed in Ajivikas, which therefore must have been those Saka-Samvat 1577, where the author declares that most noteworthy in the 3rd century B.C. and the era of Vikramiditya bears the name Samvat. that the Mathura inscriptions of the Indo-Scythic The question whether particular dates in the period which confirm the Svêtâmbara (not the MSS. to which the word Samvat is prefixed, du Digambara) tradition regarding the old teachers | refer to the Saka era, cannot, it seems to me, be and schools, become every year more numerous. decided on general grounds, but only on the merits Last year brought us Dr. Burgess's important of each single case. I therefore deal first with inscription, dated in the seventh year of Kanish. Dr. Bhåndarkar's objections to my two cases and ka; this year Dr. Führer has unearthed four with his attempts at explaining them in a manner very valuable documents of the same period. differing from mine. As regards the difficulty Among the thirty-seven Svētâmbara MSS. pur. about Rao Narayanadása II., the fuller informa
1 As the Gazetteer, loc. cit. pp. 402-403, shows, there was He cannot be meant in the colophon of the MS. of the an earlier RA Når yanadAsa I., who began to rule in Bhashya, as its dates, if referred to the Vikrama era, 1498 A.D. He died (the date is not mentioned), before would be equivalent to 1455-56 and 1456-57 A.D. 1145 A.D., in which year R&o Bhin was on the throne.
