Jain Journal 1981 07

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

Page 17

JULY 1981
But making due allowance for his natural hatred for Sasanka the stories of persecution narrated by Hiuen-Tsang can hardly be described as a mere malicious propaganda or a figment of pure imagination.
If a proper analysis of the stories of his alleged misdeeds against the Buddhists are made, it is to be found that except in Kusinagara, nowhere did Sasanka physically torture the followers of Gautama Buddha. Buddhists who lived in the heart of the kingdom of Sasanka were not probably harassed by him. Moreover the persecutionary measures of Sasanka were confined to the dismantling and desecrating the images and shrines of the Buddha. This is also confirmed by the author of Arya-Mañjuśrl-Müla-Kalpa who, too, speaks of the dismantling of an image of the Buddha and burning of great bridge of Dharma.
Whatever were the measures of his persecution, its effects were not disastrous for Buddhism abroad or even in his home country where Hiuen-Tsang found it in a flourishing condition shortly after the death of the Gauda king.
It is very surprising that while the Buddhist traveller is very eloquent about the persecution of the Buddhists by Sasanka, he is mysteriously silent about the treatment which the Nirgranthas or the Jainas and other non-Brahmanical sects had received at the hand of Sasanka.
Indeed no other ancient chronicle except Arya-Mañjufri-Mala-Kalpa had ever hinted that Sasanka persecuted the Jainas, too, along with the followers of Sakyamuni. We are indebted to this much-maligned chronicle for the piece of information that Sasanka had destroyed the Viharas, Caityas and residences of the Jainas or Nirgranthas. Had not the tradition of the destruction of the living-places of the Jainas been current at the time of the composition of the book, the writer of Arya-ManjusriMula-Kalpa' could not have recorded the event as he did in the following lines :
tato'sau kruddhalubdhastu mithyāmāni hyasammatah/ viharārāmacaityāśca nirgranthavasathām bhuvi yentyate ca tadā sarvām vrttirodhamakāraka/
"Then that angry and greedy evil doer of false notions and bad opinion will fell down all the monasteries, gardens and caityas ; and rest houses of the Jainas (Nirgranthas).”