Indian Antiquary Vol 27

Author(s): Richard Carnac Temple
Publisher: Swati Publications

Page 53

FEBRUARY, 1899.]
As regards the Johole scale for 1836, given above at p. 43, as recorded by Newbold, I will re-state it here for clearness' sake :
A LEGEND OF THE JAINA STUPA AT MATHURA.
Johole Scale.
2 saga kachil (Abrus p.) are 1 saga basar13 (Adenanthera p.) 8 saga basar
» 1 mâyam
""
15 mâyam
,, 1 bungkal
49
This makes 120 kondari bengkal, which last is said, however, to be equal to the tael and is shewn as 20 to the kati; so the subdivisions, if correctly reported, must have been some local eccentricity.
(To be continued.)
A LEGEND OF THE JAINA STUPA AT MATHURA.
BY G. BÜHLER, PH.D., LL.D., C.I.E.
ONE of the most interesting pieces in Dr. Führer's splendid collection of Jaina inscriptions from the Kankali Tila at Mathura is that dated in the year 79, as the characters prove, of the Kushana kings, which records the consecration of one, or perhaps of two statues, at the Stupa built by the gods' (thupé devanirmité), in accordance with the request of the preacher Vriddhahastin. Taken together with the discovery of the remnants of a Stúpa, it furnished an irrefragable proof that the Jainas, as their sacred books assert, in early times really erected Stúpas in honour of their prophets, which fact, as has been shown of late by M. Sylvain Levi, even their rivals, the Bauddhas, admit for the time of Kanishka. The inscription also proved the great antiquity of the Jaina fanes at Mathars, which town their tradition declares to be one of the centres of their faith. For the epithet of the Stupa built by the gods' makes it evident that in the year 79 of the Kushanas its real origin had been forgotten and a myth did daty for historical truth. Whatever the precise initial date of the era, used by Kanishka, Huvishka and Vasudeva-Vasushka, may be, this year cannot fall later than about the middle of the second century A. D. At that time the legend had been formed and the Stupa must have been erected several centuries earlier.
The exact shape of the myth regarding its origin, of course, cannot be ascertained from the inscription and hitherto no allusion to it or to the Stupa has been made known from Jaina works. But recently, on going over Jinaprabha's Tirthakalpe, called also Rajaprasada, I have met with a full account of the Stupa built by the gods' at Mathura, which gives us at least the story, as it was told between A. D. 1326/18 and 1331. The author of the Tirthakalpa him.
12 Malay kachil, kechil means small: bdsor, besar means great.
1 Extract from a paper in the Sitzungsberichte of the Imp. Academy of Vienna, Epigraphia hidica, Vol. II. p. 204, 321 f.
Jour. Asiatique, 1896, p. 459 f.
Since 1887 I have provisionally accepted the indentification of this era with the Bakasamvat. But, in doing so, I stated that I was by no means satisfied of its correctness and merely chose this, probably too late, starting point, lest I should be accused of placing the Kushanas too early, see the Vienna Or. Jour. Vol. I. p. 169. The reasons for my disbelief were then, as now, (1) that no early northern Indian inscriptions are distinctly dated according to the Saka era, (2) that the later Indian writers declare the three Kushanas to be not Bakas, but Turushkas. Recent discoveries make the identification, upheld by Fergusson, Oldenberg and others, more and more improbable. And M. Sylvain Lévi (Jour. Asiat. 1897, p. 1 ff.), arguing from a new interpretation of the Chinese sources, and the identification of king Misdeos with Vasudeva-Basdeo, has now proposed to fix the access sion of Kanishka before the beginning of our era. I fear, however, that the vexed question cannot be fully settled without further new documents. In the meanwhile I shall adhere to the plan, which I have followed hitherto. For practical purposes it makes not much difference, whether Kanishka began to reign in A. D. 78 of eighty years earlier.