Jain Journal 1997 04

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

Page 13

110
Gosäla was powerful enough to cause the destruction of the people of the sixteen tribes of the Anga, Banga, Magaha. Malaya, Mälava, Achchha, Vachchha, Kochchha, Pädha, Lādha, Bajji, Moli, Käsi, Kosala, Aväha and Sambhuttara. He further explained to them how the delirious actions of Gosāla gave rise to some of the tenets of the Ajiviyas (p. 1254a). Thus the drinking, singing, dancing and soliciting of Mankhaliputta occasioned the doctrine of the ‘eight finalities' (attha charamaïm): the last drink, the last song, the last dance, the last (improper) solicitation, the last tornado, the last sprinkling elephant, the last fight with big stones as missiles, and the last Titthankara who is Mankhaliputta himself (p. 1255a).* Again Mankhaliputta's wetting himself with the muddy water from a potter's vessel led to the doctrine of the four things that may be used as drinks, and the four things that, on account of their cooling properties, may be used as
The first four items refer to the last personal acts of Gosala. Of the latter four items the first three refer to events which happened at or about the time of Gosäla's death. The 'sprinkling elephant, was a huge elephant, apparently known by the name of Seyanaga (Skr. sechanaka) or the sprinkler', belonging to king Seniya of Magadha. He gave the elephant, together with a huge necklace of eighteen strings of jewels, to his younger son Vehalla, by his wife Chellana, a daughter of king Chedaga of Vēsāli. His elder son, Kuniya, by the same wise, after usurping his father's throne, on the instigation of his wife Paümāvai, demanded from his younger brother the return of both gifts. On the latter refusing to give them up, and flying with them to his grandfather Chedaga in Vēsāli, Kuniya, having failed peacefully to obtain the extradition of the sugitive, commenced war with Chedaga. In this war those stone missiles were employed. The story of the elephant and the war is narrated in the Nirayāvaliyāsutta (see a portion of it in Warren's ed., SS 1711). The synchronism of Gosāla's death with the war between Kuniya and Chedaga may perhaps possess a chronological value. According to the calculation, given in note 253, the war would fall in 450-451 B.C. In Nir. & 17 it is related how the elephant Seyaņaga carried the royal ladies of Champā to their bath and sport in the river Ganges. He took them up with his trunk, and placed them, some on his back, some on his neck, some on his forehead, some on his head, some on his tusks; then taking up some of them with his trunk, he tossed them up on high; others sitting on his trunk, he swayed to and fro as on a swing: others he held up between his tusks; others he bathed with a spray of water; and others he amused in various other ways. The tornado probably refers to one of those cyclonic storms, accompanied with torrents of rain, which occasionally visit India. The term charama 'last' denotes that events or things, so improper or so extraordinary as those mentioned, would never again occur.