Jain Journal 1967 04

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

Page 59

ITINERARY OF MAHAVIRA
Being a Geography of the Towns of Monsoon Retreat of Mahavira
In Kalpa Sutra II. 122 these names of towns are found in the following list given in Sanskrit:
1. Asthikagrama
2. Campa
3.
4.
Prsthicampa
Vaisali
5. Vanijyagrama
6. Rajagrha
7. Nalanda
OTTO STEIN
8. Mithila
9. Bhadrika
10. Alabhika
11.
12.
13.
Panitabhumi
Sravasti
Papa
1. Asthikagrama. In his translation (SBE XXII, p. 264, n. 2) H. Jacobi cites the commentary according to which "it was formerly called Vardhamana, but it has since been called Asthikagrama, because a yakṣa Sulapani had collected there an enormous heap of bones of the people whom he had killed. On that heap of bones the inhabitants had built a temple." Accepting this story we must try to locate the town Vardhamana.
In Mahabharata (I, 126, 9; III, 1, 10) occurs Vardhamanapura, a village according to Nilakantha on the second passage, which cannot be in connection with the other places identified with our Vardhamana. In Varahamihira's Bṛhatsanhitā we find a people called Vardhamana mentioned (XIV, 7) next to Tamraliptika and Kosalaka1, located in the East, in the Burdwan region. The passages as XVI, 3; LXXIX, 21; XCIV, 2
1 Cf. W. Kirfel, Die Kosmographie der Inder, Bonn 1920, p. 107 and 117. Vardhamanapura is found also as a town in the West in the Jaina Harivamsa, s. Indian Antiquary XV (1886), p. 141 f. Cf. Nundelal Dey, IA, XLIX (1920) Suppl., p. 25 s.v. Vardhamana 2. In Anguttara Nikaya V, 342, 346, f. occurs Atthakanagara on the way to Patalimitra; should there exist a connexion between Atthakanagara and Atthiyaggama ?