Jain Journal 1973 10

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

Page 44

OCTOBER, 1973
doing. Of course, the primary concentration of these immigrant traders was at Patna, the premier business centre in the province.
Patna had acquired this status because of its favourable geographical location which made it easier to approach the city by convenient riverine and land routes from all directions in the state. Moreover, traders from Nepal, Sikkim, Bhutan and Tibet found Patna a more convenient place for business than any other city in north India. Hence, Patna was in fact the emporium of commodities from the Himalayan and trans-Himalayan region. Thus both Indian as well as non-Indian merchants made Patna the focus of their activities in Bihar.
Among the newcomers, the most important trader was the Jaina Hiranand Shah from Rajasthan, the founder of the house of Jagatseth. He arrived here from Agra. Soon he acquired considerable wealth and his family shifted to Murshidabad". A street named after him still keeps his memory fresh.
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Kanwarpal and Sonpal, two brothers (Oswal by caste), who had migrated from Agra, also appear to have been fairly prosperous. They built and dedicated a number of images and temples in order to earn religious merit for themselves and their family." They also constructed a temple at Mirzapur in U.P3.
It appears that some of the Jainas had come to regard the city as their homeland for in two inscriptions dated Samvat 1682 and Samvat 1699 the dedicators are referred to as the inhabitants of Begampur in Padalipura (Pataliputra). Obviously it signified that they had been long resident in the place.
Patna was attracting the Jainas even from the neighbouring province of Bengal. We come across an inscription of Samvat 1732 from which it can be inferred that a Jaina belonging to Mathur Gaccha of Kastho Sangha shifted from Dacca to this place.10
5 Jain Inscriptions, collected and compiled by Puran Chand Nahar, Part I, Calcutta,
1718, Inscription Nos. 135, 295.
Ibid., Insc. No. 307.
7 Ibid., Insc. Nos. 307-312
8
Ibid., Insc. No. 433.
9 Ibid., Insc. Nos. 332 and 333.
Ibid., Insc. No. 326
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