Jain Journal 1974 04

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

Page 64

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JAIN JOURNAL
also be occupied with the Nigantha."33 The word Samgha serves here as usual for the Buddhist monks. The Ajivikas, whose name completely disappears later, are often named in the sacred writings of the Buddhists and the Jainas as an influential sect. They enjoyed the special favour of Asoka, who, as other inscriptions testify, caused several caves at Barabar to be made into dwellings for their ascetics.34 As in the still older writings of the Buddhist canon, the name Nigantha here can refer only to the followers of Vardhamana. As they are here, along with the other two favourites, counted worthy of special mention, we may certainly conclude that they were of no small importance at the time. Had they been without influence and of small numbers Asoka would hardly have known of them, or at least would not have singled them out from the other numerous nameless sects of which he often speaks. It may also be supposed that they were specially numerous in their old home, as Asoka's capital Pataliputra lay in this land. Whether they spread far over these boundaries, cannot be ascertained.
On the other hand we possess two documents from the middle of the next century which prove that they advanced into south-eastern India as far as Kalinga. These are the inscriptions at Khandagiri in Orissa, of the great King Kharavela and his first wife, who governed the east coast of India from the year 152 to 165 of the Maurya era, that is in the first half of second century B.C.
The larger inscription, unfortunately very much disfigured, contains an account of the life of Kharavela from his childhood till the thirteenth year of his reign. It begins with an appeal to the Arhat and Siddha, which corresponds to the beginning of the five-fold form of homage still used among the Jainas, and mentions the building of temples in honour of the Arhat as well as an image of the first Jina, which was taken away by a hostile king. The second and smaller inscription asserts that Kharavela's wife caused a cave to be prepared for the assceties of Kalinga, “who believed in the Arhat”. 35
83 See Senart, Inscriptions de Piyadasi, tom II, p. 82. Ed. VIII, 1. 4. My translation
differs from Senart's in some points especially in relation to the construction. Comp. Epigraphia Indica, vol. II, pp. 272 f.
See Ind. Ant., Vol. XX., pp. 361 ff. 85 The meaning of these inscriptions, which were formerly believed to be Buddhist,
was first made clear by Dr. Bhagvanlal Indraji's careful discussion in the Actes du Vlie'me Congre's Internat des Orientalistes Sect. Ary., pp. 135-159. He first recognised the true names of the King Kharavela and his predecessors and showed that Kharavela and his wife were patrons of the Jainas. We have to thank him for the information that the inscription contains a date in the Maurya Era. I