Jain Journal 2005 04

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

Page 21

WERE THE MONKS EXPELLED FROM THE BUDDHIST
SAMGHA BY ASOKA THE JAINAS ?
Chitta Ranjan Pal
On a thorough scrutiny of the detailed list of the patriarchs of the Svetāmbara Jainas, Prof. Hermann Jacobi' stated that after the sixth patriarch (Bhadrabāhu) a great expansion of Jainism had taken place in North and North-West India. At the same time he brought to light a curious legend embedded in Paumacariya (LXXXIX, 42) wherein it is stated, “In India after the time of the Nanda Kings, the law of the Jina will become scarce”. Paying due weight to this tradition, Prof. Jacobi came to the conclusion that under the Mauryas Buddhism attained the position of a popular religion and became a formidable rival of Jainism, especially, in Magadha and its adjoining regions.
In fact, the steady growth and expansion of Jainism in North and North-West India, for over a century, sustained a serious set back when at the out break of a terrible famine, Emperor Chandragupta Maurya and his preceptor Bhadrabāhu accompanied by twelve thousand recluses, migrated to Mysore where the emperor died of voluntary starvation like a true Jaina saint. Even after the famine was over, the Jaina Samgha could not regain its former position in Magadha and the adjoining territories as the Samgha was torn by internal dissensions and acrimonies.
On the other hand, on conversion of Asoka to Buddhism, the religion of the Buddha was adorned with great glory and it acquired tremendous potentiality for expansion not only into the empire ruled over by Aśoka, but also to distant lands outside his empire. In a short time legend after legend grew up around the name of Asoka which
1. Jainism - Hermann Jacobi, in Encyclopaedia of Religion and Ethics.
p.465 ff.