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JULY, 1919)
IS KALKIRAJA AN HISTOBICAL PERSONAGE?
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IS KALKIRAJA AN HISTORICAL PERSONAGE?
BY PROF. H. B. BHIDE, M.A., LL.B.; BHAVNAGAR. JAIN authors have referred to a Kalkiraja who according to some of them flourished about 1000 years after the Nirvana of Mahavira, and during whose reign Jain saints suffered persecution at his hands. Mr. Jayaswal and Mr. Pathak have called in aid this tradition while formulating their respective theories which are now known to the readers of this Journal. Their theories are quite different and I am not directly concerned with them at present. My immediate purpose is to show that the Jain tradition is not trustworthy from the point of view of history and that oonsequently their theories are weakened in so far as they are based upon it.
I first deal with Mr. Jayaswal's argument. He relies mainly upon Jinasena, the author of the Hari-va viia. He says that Jinasena's date for Kalkirâja is presumably correct as he was removed from Kalkiraja by less than 300 years. Now if Jinasena's statements are to be taken as correct, we shall find on scrutinising them that they do not substantiate the conclusion at which Mr. Jayaswal arrives. The chronology as given by Jinasena is this: Palaka .. ..
60 years. Vijaya Kings
.. 155 » The Purâdhas Pushpamitra Vasumitra and Agnimitra Râsabha Kings .. Naravahana The Bana Kings .. The Gupta Kings .. Kalkirâja .. .. .. .. .. 12 ,
Total .. 1000 years.
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This shows that the 42 years of the reign of Kalkirâja were the concluding years of the 1000-year period which elapsed after the Nirvana of Mahavira ; that is, we must suppose Kalkirája to have died in A.D. 473 or A.D. 455 according as we nagign the date 527 B.C. or 545 B.o. to Mahavira's Nirudna. In either case the date is too early for Yabodharman of Malava with whom Mr. Jayaswal wants Kalkirâja to be identified. If we are to rely on Jinasena, we cannot then assert that Kalkirâja began to reign in A.D. 473 as Mr. Jayaswal seems to do. As a fact, however, I hope to show that the Jain traditions regarding Kalkiråja are conflicting and therefore possess no historical importance.
Mr. Pathak attempts to determine the initial date of the Gupta era with the help uf Jain authors only. He proposes to identify Mihirakula with Kalkirå ja, mentioned by Jinasena, Guņabhadra and Nemichandra, and then to prove that the Gupta era commenced in the year 242 of the Saka era. I have no quarrel with him as regards the conclusion which can be proved on other grounds; I only wish to point out that the authorities he has put forward are not only in thomselves insufficient to prove his case, but are of an extremely doubtful character. I should like to bring to the notice of scholars, (1) that some of Mr. Pathak's arguments are vitiated by serious flaws in
