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JANUARY 1982
It is true that the author of Arya-mañjusrl-müla-kalpa has not disclosed the identity of the assassin of Rajyavardhana, but the passage quoted above throws a disguised insinuation at Soma or Sasanka whose name has been mentioned in the previous line, as the perpetrator of this heinous crime.
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The Chinese pilgrim Hiuen-Tsang in his account categorically mentioned that Sasanka, king of Gauda had assassinated the prince of the Pusyabhuti dynasty. Hiuen-Tsang stated in his book, "Prabhakaravardhana was succeeded by his son, Rajyavardhana on the throne of Kanauj. The latter soon after his accession was treacherously murdered by Sasanka, the wicked king of Karnasuvarna in East India, a persecutor of Buddhism." Modern scholars are unanimous in fixing the responsibility of murder of Rajyavardhana upon Sasanka.
The assassin of Rajyavardhana has been stated as belonging to the naked community by the author of Arya-mañjusri-mula-kalpa and as such we shall not commit a great blunder if we suppose that king Sasanka belonged to the nagnajati or naked-caste or community.
A minute. perusal of the passage refering to the death of Rajyavardhana in the Arya-mañjuśrī-mula-kalpa leaves an impression on the mind that the author of the said book hinted at Sasanka by the word nagnajāti nṛpa. The author of Arya-mañjusri-müla-kalpa, in most cases, did not mention full proper names of the royal personages or Buddhist or Brahmanical monks or scholars whom he referred to in his book. It is the peculiarity of the author that he had used the initial letter, or a synonym or the caste or race name for the person whom he referred to in his work.
It is true that in Bengal there is no caste having the appellation of nagnajāti. But there is ground to believe that the author had in his mind the thought of the sect of the Digambaras, when he mentioned nagnajāti. The advanced monks of the Digambara community go on naked or sky-clad as they believe that the discarding the use of clothes will help them in attaining salvation. The lay-devotees of the sect revere the Tirthankaras who are also sky-clad.
But there is one great difficulty in the way of such a supposition as in one place of the book i.e. Ārya-mañjusri-mula-kalpa, Sasanka has been described as belonging to the Brahmin caste and bestowing largess to Brahmins. A few coins, which have been unearthed, tells that Sasanka was a devout Saiva by religious persuasion. A statement of Hiuen-Tsang
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