Introducing Jainism

Author(s): Satyaranjan Banerjee
Publisher: Jain Bhawan Publication

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INTRODUCING JAINISM
doctrine of fatalism was formulated before Mahāvīra. We have some references to seven schisms27 at the time of Mahāvīra. A little later sometime in the fourth-third centuries B.C. the Jaina community was broadly divided into two. sects-Svetāmbara and Digambara. "The points of difference between the two pertain to matters of dogma like the number of movable and immovable beings, the possibility of woman attaining liberation, and the food partaken by the omniscient teachers; to mythological events like the transference of Mahāvira embryo, his marriage, the sex of Malli, one of the prophets, and to practices like the wearing of clothes and going naked."
VI. Growth of Jainism
At the time of Mahāvīra, Jainism spread to the kingdoms of Kośala, Videha, Anga, Vanga etc. besides its birth place Magadha. In the Kappasutta (I. 51-52) Mahāvira's itinerary is preserved to some extent. He wandered as far as AngaMagadha to the east, Sthunā to the west, Kausāmbi to the south and Kunālā to the north. From the inscription of Khāravela (3rd/2nd cent. B.C.), we come to know that Mahāvīra established Jainism in the country of Kalinga, and Khāravela, the Chedi king of Orissa, showed his great inclination towards Jainism.
Sometime in the second century B.C., the Jaina community migrated to Mathurā and Ujjayini. In Mathurā we have some ruins of a Jaina shrine and a small number of inscriptions, engraved on Jaina images. Ujjayini was also a strongholdof Jainism. “If we believe in the story of Aśoka's grandson king Samprati and his conversion to Jainism by Suhastin, this spread to Malwa must be placed as early as the second century B.C. We are further told that Samprati persuaded his grandfather to send religious missionaries to the countries of Andhras and Dramilas to propagate the religion. The famous story of Kālakācārya, the Jaina sage, implies the spread of Jainism in Malwa in the first century B.C."28
27. Glasenapp, Der Jainismus, pp. 346-49. 28. Majumdar, ibid., p. 418.