Jain Thought and Culture

Author(s): G C Pandey
Publisher: University of Rajasthan

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Jain Thought and Culture
other monks he reached Gokula, to the east of which was Kronchapura where a king named Sumitra was ruling Sumitra had given shelter to Subandhu, a former minister of Nanda and an enemy of Chanakya. Subandhu came to see Chanakya who was undergoing Padopagamana fast and after surrounding him with cowdung cakes, set fire to them In the Upadesapada of Haribhadra the same story is narrated with the difference that here Chanakya becomes a Jain monk because of his difference with Bindusara51 and loses his life during ingini marana vrata In this work he is also said to have been a Samghapalaka during the time he was holding the post of minister The Bhatta Painna, the Santhara Paling and the Marana Vili Painna also support this tradition of Chanakyas death in all essential details.
From the above discussion it is apparent that according to the Jain tradition Chanakya, the Maurya minister, was a follower of Jainism There is nothing inherently improbable in this tradition As is well known, Magadha was a great centre of Jainism The kings of the Nanda dynasty were patrons of this religion , epigraphic evidence for it comes from the Hathigumpha inscription of Kharavela 52 Their ministers were Jain by faith Chandragupta Maurya, the founder of the Maurya dynasty was himself a Jain. Therefore, Chanakya could also have been a Jain Unfortunately, Johnston and Burrow did not pay much attention to this tradition, even though it indirectly proves the hypothesis that Chanakya and Kautilya were two different persons and belonged to two different periods Similarly, Muni Mahendra Kumara Prathama and others53 who believe that Chanakya was a Jain by faith, have failed to shake off the temptation of making him the author of the Arthasastra, the greatest Indian work on the science of polity But the theory that Chanakya was a devout Jain cannot be reconciled with the theory of his authorshiop of the Arthasastra The Arthasastra is certainly not very respectful to the herectical sects It refers to all the non-Vedic sects as urishala or pashanda and prescribes a heavy fine for inviting their monks to dinners in honour of the deities and pitris (320)
51 The Buddhist work Aryamanjusrimulakal pa also makes Chankaya a minister of Bindusara (Jayaswal, KP, Imperial History of India, P 16) 52 Sircar, Select Inscriptions, p 217 53 Munı Mahendra Kumar Prathama, Kya Chanakya Jaina Tha ? Muni Naya Vijaya, Anekanta, II No I, 1938, pp 105-15, Jain, Jyoti Prasad, Jaina Siddhanta Bhaskara, XV, No 1, XVII No 1, Smarıka 1974, Bharattya Itihasa ek Drishti, Jain, BKP, The Religion of Tirthankaras