Jain Journal 2006 07

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

Page 37

JAIN JOURNAL: VOL-XLI, NO. 1 JULY 2006
Brāhnanical religion and the pioneer of this Eastward Jaina advance or migration was Jambūsvāmī who attained nirvāna or deliverance among the people of the territory he had proselytized. It is a sad irony of history that the posterity had almost forgotten this "perpetual celebate” saint who was the pioneer in Aryanising the East beyond Anga-Magadha. After the lapse of a few centuries, this celebrated ascetic, the first non-Ganadhara, head of the Jaina order, was found preserved in memory of the followers of the Tīrthnkaras as a mere name divested of his spiritual and missionary attainments buried deep into the libo of oblivion.
In the “Therāvali” of the Kalpasūtra attributed to Bhadrabāhusvāmi, the name of Jambū occurs thrice belonging to different gotras as well as under different preceptors. First of all, ārya Jambūnāmāna” of Kāśyapagotra has been mentioned after Arya Sudharman as the disciple of the latter. Then Jambū has been mentioned as the tenth disciple of Sambhūtavijaya without any honorofic like 'ārya' and without any gotra name. Lastly, Jainbū has been found mentioned in the gāthā (ix) with the honorofic 'Sthavira' and belonging to Gautama gotra. German Jinologist Jacobi has identified the first Jambū with the second in the list disregarding the differences in their respective gotras and preceptors. But this duplication or triplication of Jambūs in the "Therāvali" of the Kalpasūtra, perhaps, was at the root of future complications regarding the monastic career as well as place of nirvāņa of Jambūsvāmī, the celebrated disciple of Sudharinan.
It will not be out of place to inention that "Jambūsvāmi-nirvanaparvan” is the 4th sarga in the Parisistaparvan of the great savant Hemacandra (12 century A.D.). In this parvaņ the monastic career of Jambu's preceptor Sudharınan has been described in more details than that of his pupil Jarnbū. In the said parvan, Hemacandra has not entered into the details as to how and where Jambūsvāmi attained nirvana. Hemacandra only mentions that Jambu was the last kevalin and he attained moksa or deliverance from the cycles of birth and rebirth 64 years after the nirvana of Mahāvīra.
Perhaps this indifference, if not disrespect, shown to Jambūsvāmin by the monastic establishment of the Jainas of the sub