Jain Journal 1972 04

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

Page 41

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JAIN JOURNAL
the king together with his wife Cellana came to pay homage to Mahavira. Besides these, many of his other wives and sons joined the order of Mahavira.
Bimbisara was followed by his son Kunika Ajatasatru who was born to Cellana. Kunika has also been frequently referred to as a devotee of Mahavira. The Aupapātika gives a graphic description of his visit to Mahavira's sermon. Regarding this king the Buddhists and the Jainas differ inasmuch as the former discredit him by saying that he murdered his father and then ascended the throne. The Jainas, however, admit that he harassed his father by imprisoning him, but show that Kunika repented for it when it was too late because his father, misunderstanding his son's purpose, had already taken poison. The account of the Buddhists, perhaps, hints that this king was not favourable to them, while that of the Jainas, which softens down his behaviour, seem to be the outcome of Kunika's devotion to their faith.
Anyway, this king reigned at an important epoch in Indian history, inasmuch as “it was during the reign of Ajatasatru that both Mahavira and Gautama, the great teachers of Jainism and Buddhism respectively, are said to have entered nirvana.” And, from the Jaina account and Buddhist denunciation of him, it appears that his affinities leaned heavily towards Jainism.
The successor of Ajatasatru was Udayi. According to the Jaina accounts, this king also was a devout Jaina. He is credited with the building of a Jaina temple at Pataliputra. That he did not pay merely a lip sympathy to Jainism is proved by the account which says that he practised fasts after the manner of a Jaina layman. Moreover, the very circumstances of his end which made him face death at the hands of a dethroned prince, who had come with a Jaina Acarya, in the disguise of a Jaina monk, make it evident that the Jaina monks had a free access to his palace without any trouble.
Thus these three major kings of the Sisunaga dynasty seem to be the followers of the Jaina faith.
The Nandas :
The successors of the Sisunagas were the Nandas, and the Avašyaka Sūtra makes the first king the son of a barber from a courtesan.
The very fact of their non-Brahmin origin tends to lend support to Jaina accounts of them which show that they were Jainas.