Jain Journal 1989 07

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

Page 31

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Mahavira in that region. Whatever that many be, the Jaina Kalpasūtra, in question, refers to a legend amounting for the change of the name, viz., one Yaksa Sulapani collected an enormous heap of bones of people on which a temple was built by the people. The place may be identified with modern Burdwan. There is a temple called Sat Deuliya at the village of Devliya, a Jaina settlement, not far away from Burdwan Town. It may incidentally be mentioned here that there are places called Hadaipur and Yakher Danga in the district of Birbhum. It is related in the Kathasaritsägara (a work of circa 11th century A.D.) that once a traveller from the town of Vardhamana reached the great forest of the Vindhyan system through the southern quarter perhaps via Bankura and Purulia. There was a Vardhamanavihara (a stūpa) at Tulaksetra, mentioned in one illustrated Buddhist manuscript of the Pala epoch. But it was located in Varendri, i.e. north Bengal. Vardhamana as a place-name was very familiar in Bengal (in Radha, Varendri and Samatata-Chittagong regions) and other states of India in ancient and medieval times.
JAIN JOURNAL
It is held by scholars that before the coming of the Aryans, the Radhadesa was inhabited by the non-Aryan people, who spoke an unintelligible speech, i.e. not in an Indo-Aryan language. Major parts of eastern India was considered as Vratyadesa. Though Aryanization of Bengal began in circa 7th century B. C., there are scholars who think that the land was Aryanized by the Jaina preachers. As to the time and manner of the spread of Aryanism in Bengal scholars differ, but it seems true that Radha was Aryanized later than Pundrabhumi. According to the Ceylonese Mahāvamśa, reclamation of Radha was achieved by the semilegendary king Vijaya of Vanga. This text has described Radha as being covered in jungles, infested by wild animals and inhabited by peoples with totemistic beliefs. Thus, we see that though the suggestion of the Aryanization of Bengal by the Jainas cannot be accepted as true, it is certain that both Aryans and non-Aryan monks often visited Radha or Suhma country in the 5th century B.C. and onwards.
From a critical analysis of the Jaina and Buddhist chronicles and canonical texts, it seems certain that Bengal (Pundravardhana, Radha and Suhma) was the sweet home of Jainism in the 4th-3rd century B.C. onwards untill it was checked by the tide of the resurgent Buddhistic and Brahmanical faiths in 8th century A.D., though it continued to remain as a living faith even few centuries after, not to be wiped out even in the present era.
The history of Jainism, which begins with the travels of Mahavira and other Nirgranthas (Jainas), culminated in the 3rd century B. C., when