Jaina Philosophy Historical Outline

Author(s): Narendra Nath Bhattacharya
Publisher: Munshiram Manoharlal Publisher's Pvt Ltd New Delhi

Page 50

Introduction 29 earliest available specimens of old Gujarati, viz. the BharateśvaraBāhubali-ghora (AD 1170) of Vajrasena and its expanded version, the Bharateśvara-Bahubali-rāsa (AD 1185) of Sālibhadra describe a great mythical war, at the end of which the victor Bāhubali understands the futility of worldly actions and resorts to asceticism. The Candanabālā-rāsa (AD 1201) of Asiga, the Jambűsvāmī-cariya (AD 1210) of Dharma and the Gayasukumāla-räsa (AD 1250) of Delhana deal with Jain mythology while other rāsas like the Revantagiri (AD 1232) of Vijayasena, Abu (AD 1233) of Pālhaņa and Perhada (AD 1300) of the writer of the same name eulogize the holy places. Works like Buddhi-rāsa (AD 1200), Jivadayā-rāsa (AD 1201), Saptakşetrirāsa (AD 1271), etc. composed by Sālibhadra, Asiga and others are purely religious and didactic in character. Besides the rāsa literature, old Gujarati contains compositions known as bārahamāsā (cf. bāramāsyā of Bengali literature) mātrkā and vivāhala and most of these writings are of Jain origin. During the second half of the fourteenth century Nemicandra Bhāņdari composed 160 găthās on Jain faith upon which two prose commentaries in early Gujarati dating between 1550 and 1560 have been found. The Jain writers had a very great place in the development of Gujarati literature in its different aspects. The great Hemacandra was an inhabitant of Gujarat, and he collected over 100 couplets in the Apabhramśa of his time (twelfth century) which are claimed by Hindi and Marwari and also by Gujarati as specimens of their earliest poems. Unfortunately, in early Hindi and Marwari, Jain works are rare. This also holds good in the case of Marathi.
Archaeological Sources: Architecture and Sculpture
The patterns of Jain art, relics of Jain sculptures and monuments, their structural characteristics, variety of styles and geographical distribution, immensely help us to understand the historical process through which Jainism manifested itself from its tribal core and ultimately acquired a universal character. The earliest specimen of Jain art is supposed to be a highly polished torso of a Jina Image from Lohanipur near Patna which have been claimed to belong to the Maurayan' age and it is interesting to note that stylistically it is analogous to the mutilated red stone statuatte from Harappa, thus
1JBORS, XXIII, pp. 130.32, pl. I-IV. 'Marshall, MIC, I. pl. X, a-d.