Jain Journal 1969 04

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

Page 31

APRIL, 1969
239
Early Jaina establishments—Nayasena, a Kannada Jaina writer of the fourteenth century, relates in his Dharmāmộta the story of the migration of a Jaina king from Angadesa to Bhattiprolu in Andhra, in the times of Vasupujya. Nayasena's story speaks of a Sanghasri, a Kamalasri and a Bodisri, names which suggest the Iksvaku period in the Andhra history. There could have been a migration of north Indian Jainas to Bhattiprolu during that period. Harisena's Brhat Kathākoșa written about 931: A.D. contains another version of this migration. The best that we could believe in these stories is that the Jainas tried to propagate their religion in the early centuries of the Christian era.
A tiny piece of sculptural evidence may be presented in the shape of a terracotta fragment obtained at Aryavatam, a Jaina establishment near Daksharama in the East Godavari district in support of this. Aryavata means a banyan tree worthy of worship. In Mathura, a queen disciple Amohini by name, set up an āryakavata for the worship of the Arhats, at about the end of the first century A.D. The setting up of an ārya(ka)vata in this village that bears its name, might have taken place at the most a century after that time. We do not hear of another village like this bearing the name Aryavata. Aryavata yielded about half a dozen figures of Tirthankaras. We can place the Aryavatam Jaina establishment at about the middle of the Iksvaku period. This could have been due originally to the Jainas who came south from Angadesa.
Two earliest Tirthankara icons on stone, one found at Kakinada in its town hall compound and a second embedded in a wall at Kuyyeru, a small village on the north bank of the Gautami below Kotipalli, could be contemporaneous with the Bhattiporlu Jaina establishment and incidentally with early Aryavatam.
Jaina Preceptors—The line of Jaina preceptors of south India continued after Kondakunda through Umasvami, the composer of Tatvarthadhigama Sutras, Griddhrapincha, the preceptor, who used a broom of eagle feathers to sweep insects off his foreground or sitting place, Balakapincha, the preceptor who used a broom of crane feathers, and Samantabhadra, the great disputant and author of Aptamīmānsā. This line of preceptors of the Vakragaccha was very famous and noted for scholarship and argument.
The disciples of these teachers spread to different parts of the country heading other lines of preceptors, who claimed their descent from these monks belonging to the main line. Other similar lines hailing from north India joined these and soon hosts of Jaina preceptors walked the