Jain Journal 1997 10

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

Page 24

MUKHERJI: CULTURAL HERITAGE OF BENGAL IN RELATION TO JAINISM 55
mentioned here that there are places called Hädaipur and 'Yakher Dāngā in the district of Birbhüm. It is related in the Kathāsaritsagara (a work of circa 11th cent A.D.) that once a traveller from the town of Vardhamāna reached the great forest of the Vindhyan system through the southern quarter perhaps via Bankurā and Puruliā. 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 Rādha, Varendri and Samatata-Chittagong regions) and other states of India in ancient and medieval times.
It is held by scholars that before the coming of the Aryans, the Rādhadesa was inhabited by the non-Aryan people, who spoke an unintelligible speach, i.e. not in an Indo-Aryan language. Major parts of eastern India was considered as 'Vrätyadeśa'. 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 Rādha was aryanized later than Pundrabhumi. According to the Ceylonese Mahavamsa, reclamation of Rādha was achieved by the semi-legendary king Vijaya of Vanga. This text has described Rādha 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 nonAryan monks often visited Radha or Suhma country in the 5th century and onwards.
From a critical analysis of the Jaina and Buddhist chronicles and canonical texts, it seems certain that Bengal (Pundravardhana, Rādha and Suhma) was the sweet home of Jainism in the 4th-3rd cent B.C. onwards untill it was checked by the tide of the resurgent Buddhistic and Brahmanical faiths in 8th cent. 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 Mahāvira and other Nirgranthas (Jainas), culminated in the 3rd cent., B.C., when the illustrious disciple of the famous Jaina religious leader Bhadrabāhu (a contemporary and religious guru of Chandragupta Maurya), a native of Bengal born at Devīkota Godāsa (who seemed to have born in East Bengal) formed a sect of his own (Godāsagana) in eastern India with four sub-sections or branches, viz. a) Pundravardhaniya, b) Koțivarsiya, c) Tamraliptīya and d) Dāsi-Kharvatika. Each of these sects except the last one was associated with the well