Jain Journal 1984 04

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

Page 15

128
JAIN JOURNAL
Jainism made very good progress in Bengal in the next century. The Chinese pilgrim Hiuen Tsang, who visited this region about 638 A.D. describes Jainism as the dominant religion in two of the most important States, one North and the other in South-eastern Bengal. Referring to Pundravardhana, a big flourishing kingdom in North Bengal the pilgrim says, 'There were 20 Buddhist monasteries .... Deva temples were 100 in number, and the followers of various sects lived pell-mell, the Digambara Nirgranthas being very numerous.'21 Referring to Samatata or Lower Bengal to the east of the Ganges (more precisely a part of Central Bengal extending upto and including Tipperah District) the pilgrim observes, 'It had more than 30 Buddhist monasteries ....There were 100 Deva temples, the various sects lived pell-mell and the Digambara Nirgranthas were very numerous."22 This rendering of Hiuen Tsang's statement in English by T. Watters does not enable us to make a comparative estimate of the importance of Buddhism, Brahmanical religion (Deva temples) and the other sects among which the Jainas predominated. The translation of the same passages by S. Beal is somewhat different and of great significance from this point of view.. Thus the first of the two passages is translated as follows, "There are about twenty sanghārāmas .... There are some hundred Deva temples where sectaries of different schools congregate. The naked Nirgranthas are the most numerous. "23 This would mean that the majority of people who were not Buddhists followed the Jaina religion ; in other words, the Jainas were more numerous even than the followers of Brahmanical religions. But what is probably meant is that among the homeless ascetics, who were not Buddhists, the majority were the followers of Jainism.
Curiously enough, we have no definite information about the position of the Jainas in Bengal after 7th century A.D. Discovery of Jaina images belonging to this period, both in Pundravardhana and Samatata, may be taken to indicate that Jainism still flourished in those regions. But the number of images so far found is very few, and there is no epigraphic record throwing any light on the condition of Jainism after the 7th century A.D. In the Jaina Inscriptions (Jaina Lekha Sangragha) collected and compiled by Puran Chand Nahar (Calcutta, 1918) there is a short epigraph engraved on the back of an image of Parsvanatha bearing the date 1110 samvat. It adorned a temple at Azimganj in the District of Murshidabad (West Bengal) which was washed away by the
21 Watters, On Yuan Chwang, II. 184. 22 Ibid., 187. 23 Beal, Buddhist Records of the Western World, II. 195. The same difference occurs
in the translation of the other passage also.