Jain Journal 2005 01

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

Page 12

CHITTARANJAN PAL: POSITION OF THE JAINAS IN BENGAL
In the Prabodhacandrodaya (1065 A.D.) of Krişņa Mišra, Soma siddhanta, a Kāpālika preceptor, (himself a pāşanda) is found stigmatizing a Nirgrantha Digambara monk (another pasanda) as pāşandāpasada.
Like the term pāşanda, the connotation of Tīrthika had undergone changes in course of time. Originally the word tirthika meant the followers of the teacher of other religious sects than his own. Lāmā Tāranātha by the term tirthikas sometimes meant "out siders” i.e. not the followers of one's own sect. Sometimes he is found to include the Lokāyatas or the Cārvākas among the tirthikas.'' But in most cases by the terin tirthikas he meant the Hindus or the followers of different Brahmanical sects. The Buddhist Chronicle, like Arva Manjusrimülakalpa by the term tirthika generally indicated the followers of Brahmanical sects or the Hindus.
After a little digression, let us come to the point of our discussion. K.P. Jayswal, in his Imperial History of Iridia, has summarily translated the sloka (687) of Ārya manjusrimülakalpa as follows :
“The land will become surrounded by many heretics-orthodox Hindus upto the sea”.
The cursory translation of the couplet (No. 687) in English as done by the learned scholar, K.P. Jayswal, who had made “Pāşandibhih" an adjunct to nānā “Tirthikabasibhiḥ" appears not to be very sound.
If K.P. Jayswal's construction as well as translation is conceded, it is to be concluded that the Buddhist chronicler wanted to convey to his readers the idea that even after several years' reign of Gopāladeva in Bengal, the whole country had been turned exclusively into abodes of the Tīrthikas or the different Brahmanical sectarians. But the chronicler had no intention to convey to his readers such an idea as
16. A.K. Chatterjee, A Comprehensive History of Jainism Vol-1