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JAIN JOURNAL: VOL-XXXIX, NO. 3 JANUARY. 2005
The moriband Nirgranthas (Jainas) who had kept themselves stuck to their old habitations bearing all sorts of privations, were invigorated with a new life after a long hibernation since the days of Śaśānka. The news of vernal religious freedon generated by generous Gopaladeva might have induced some of the migrant Nirgranthas (Jainas) to return to their older habitats. So it seems that the spectacle of sky-clad monks performing various sorts of austere religious practices, probably, became a regular feature which greeted the eyes of people of Samatata, Pundravardhana and other regions where the Nirgranthas (Jainas) were "very numerous" once.10
That the Nirgranthas (Jainas) formed a part of the religieux of ancient Bengal during the reign of Gopala can be gleaned from a sloka (No. 687) of Arya Manjuśri-müla-kalpa which is quoted below:
"(paṣaṇḍibhiḥ samākrāntaṁ nānā tīthikavāsībhiḥ/ ākrāntaḥ so diśaḥ sarvā samudratiracaryagāh //”
Though the meanings of the two terms pāṣaṇḍi and tirthika had undergone changes in later ages, it seems that the Buddhist chronicler like his Brahmanical Hindu contemporaries by the term paṣaṇḍas hinted at the non-Vedic heretical sects with the exclusion of the Buddhists (as the chronicler himself was a Buddhist) and by the term tirthikas the chronicler meant "followers of the different Brahmanical Hindu sects.
Let us now digress for a moment to find out the original meanings of the two words pāṣanḍa and tīrthika which had undergone changes in later years.
The word pasamdani is first found inscribed on Ashokan. Rock Edict XII. The word paṣaṇḍa was then found on the rocks of Hathigumpha at the Udayagiri on Kumari Hills in Kalinga. The inscription was incised on the wall of a cave in Udayagiri during the reign of king Khāravela in circa Ist century B.C.," wherein king
10. Watters, Yuan Chuwang Vol II.
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