________________
CHAPTER 13
WEST INDLA
EVEN THOUGH VERY FEW JAINA VESTIGES OF THE PERIOD UNDER consideration have been found, it is quite certain from the evidence of literature that there were many Jaina dentres both in central and western India during this period. The pakaity of Jaina finds of this period is not a phenomenon observed only in western India; even in Magadha, the land of Mahavira's birth, beyond a few sculptures from Rajgir hardly anything that can be definitely assigned to this period has been discoverod.
The early Jaina tradition regarding the popularity of Jainism in central India (Ujjain) and western India (Sindhu-Sauvira) has already been dealt with in Chapter 8, where it has also been shown that Jaina monks seem to have lived in Saurāştra, near Girnar-Junagadh, during Kşatrapa rule. We shal, therefore, expect to discover in future Jaina relics of the third, fourth and later centuries from Rajasthan, Gujarat and the Deccan, especially Junagadh, Valabhi and Broach in Gujarat and from near Sürpdraka or modern Sopara near Bombay and from the site of Pratişthanapura.
In the beginning of the fourth century A.D., we find two Jaina Councils meeting almost simultaneously, at Mathurd under Arya Skandila and at Valabbu in Saurastra under Arya Nagarjuna. The Svetambara canonical works, as available today, often prefer the textual readings of the Mathurt Council. Again, there was a second Council at Valabhi under the chairmanship of Devarddhi-gani Kşamáśramaņa to edit and preserve the Jaina canon. The present Svetămbara canon is supposed to follow this second Valabhi Council which met in the year 980 after Mahavira's nirvana, Le. in A.D. 453. The necessity for holding a second Council at Vałabhi within a couple of centuries when the canons had already been written in the fourth century, is still a problem of investigation. There can be one plausible solution to this problem. Already in A.D. 83 (according to the Svetämbaras), or in A.D. 80 (according to the Digambaras), the Digambara sect arose under the leadership of Śivabhūti, a disciple of Arya Krşpasramang. The Svetämbara-Digambara differences were formerly limited to a few problems, the principal onę being
