Jain Journal 1967 04

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

Page 62

APRIL, 1967
A. Weber and H. Jacobis have remarked that the Indian commentators did not understand the term, found in Sutrakṛtānga (I, 2.3); Uttaradhyayana (VI, 17). But a closer consideration will show that the term is without value. Jacobi stated himself (SBE, XLV, p.261 n. 1) that the passage evam se udaha...arahā Nāyaputte bhagavam Vesālie is a contradiction to the supposition that the whole lesson was pronounced by Rsabha ; Mahavira, on the other hand, could not have said about his own person (Sutrakṛtānga, I, 2, 26) mahayā mahesiņā. In Uttaradhyayana (VI, 17) we find the term only in prose annexed to a metrical chapter and neither the Commentary on Sutrakṛtänga nor that on Uttaradhyayana knows anything about the origin of the name Vaisalika".
In the following lines may be shown from another standpoint the inconsistency of the historical circumstances respecting Mahavira's birthplace and family with the geographical data.
The father of the founder of the Jaina religion was the ksatriya Siddhartha (Acārānga, II, 15, 4), to which two other names (Acārānga, II, 15, 15) are asssigned: Sejjamsa and Jasamsa10. According to the remarks made by Hoernle he was "the chief of Naya-clan, resident in the Kollaga suburb of the city of Vesali or Kundagama11." Kollaga is situated in a north-easterly direction of Vanijyagrama, whose king was Jiyasattu (Uvāsagadasão I, 3). The king of Videha was Cetaka, while Jiyasattu is also mentioned as king of Sravasti12. But we know from the Buddhist sources that there existed in Vaisali the oligarchy of the Licchavis. Now we have the following relations between the residences :
Sravasti Alabhiya 13
Videha King Cetaka Mithila
Vaisali
Licchavis
189
Vanijyagrama
Kundagrama
suburb Kollaga14. Jiyasattu King Siddhartha
8 Cf. Sacred Books of the East, Vol. XXII, p. xi.
9 Cf. A. Weber, Indische Studien, Vol. XVI (1883), p. 261; Verzeichnis der Sanskrit and Prakrit-Handschriften der Konigl. Bibliothek, Zu Berlin, II, 3 p. 424 n. 1., 434, n. 5.
10 Probably Sreyamsa and Yasamsa.
11
Uvasagadasao, translated by A. F. R. Hoernle, p. 5., note.
12 Hoernle, 1.c., p. 103, n. 246.
18
Cf. Uvasagadasao, 1.c., p. 6, n. 9 and text IV, 155.
14 Perhaps the modern Kollua (JRAS 1902, p. 283).