Jain Journal 2006 07

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

Page 36

Chitta Ranjan Pal: Mahāiuni Jambūsvāmi and Bengal
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Jainas consider themselves the spiritual descendants of Sudharman He entered the Jaina order at the age of fifty and thirty years he was the disciple of Mahāvīra and after the nirvana of Mahāvīra he was the patriarch of the Jaina Church for twelve years and after that he attained omniscience. Eight years after the attainment of Omniscience he was liberated from the cycles of birth and rebirth at the age of 100.
Arya Sudharman was succeeded by his disciple Ārya Jambū of Kāsyapagotra who led the Jaina community for the next twenty four years and attained mokṣa or liberation sixty-four years (64) after the Nirvāņa of Mahāvīra. He was the last Kevalin among the Jainas. He preserves a place of honour both in the communities of the Svetāmbaras and the Digambaras. The list of succession of the “Heads of Church" from Mahāvīra to Arya Jambū is honoured and recognized by both the communities, but succession of the patriarchs from Prabhava to Sambhūtavijaya is not accepted by the Digambaras who possess their own list of partiarchs but the two communities converge to the patriarchate of Bhadrabāhu, the preceptor of Chandra Gupta Maurya. After Bhdrabāhu the list of succession of the pontiffs of the two communities diverges not to converge again.
In fact, the monastic life of Indrabhūti Gautama was almost coextensive to the Tīrthanka-life of Mahāvīra and he obtained omniscience after the Nirvāņa of Mahāvīra and as such he was not invested with patriarchate of the Jaina order. So he was found not to be associated with any activity of the Jaina Samgha.
Jaina chronology, though inadequate and admits of more than one interpretation, may be adduced to support this view.
The traditional date of the Nirvāna of Mahāvīra is 527 BC, but the western Jinologists fix this date at 468 BC. According to Jaina authorities including Hemacandra Jambūsvāmī attained mokṣa or deliverance from the cycles of birth and rebirth 64 years after the nirvāna of Mahāvīra. So according to traditional Jaina reckoning the date falls on 463 B.C., and according to the Western calculation on 403 B.C. and as such there is no difficulty in assuming that the Jainas had entered into some regions of Bengal in the fifth century BC far ahead of either the Buddhists or the followers of the