Jaina Philosophy Historical Outline

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

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38 Jain Philosophy in Historical Outline
disciple of Bhadrabahu and that he survived his teacher by twelve years which were spent in penance on the hill, and then died there himself. The oldest of these inscriptions may be assigned to the sixth century AD. One point, which must be taken into account in this connection, is that this tradition of migration is emphasised in Jain literature, and the archaeological findings of Rice and Narasimhachar support it. Fleet, however, holds a different view. He says that although the migration itself seems to be historical, it was conducted by another Bhadrabahu who became the head of the order 492 years after Mahāvīra according to an ancient list of the Digambaras2 and that instead of Candragupta we have to think of Guptigupta as being the pupil of this second Bhadrabāhu.
The earliest epigraphic reference to the Jains under the name Nigantha is found in the Aśokan inscriptions. In the fourteenth year of his reign, Aśoka appointed officials to watch over the life of different religious communities, and of them he said in the second part of the Seventh Pillar Edict which he issued in the 29th year of his reign: "My Censors of the Law of Piety, too, are occupied with various objects of the (royal) favour, affecting both ascetics and householders, and are likewise occupied with all denominations. I have arranged, also, that they should be occupied with the affairs of the Buddhist clergy, as well as among the Brāhmaṇas and the Ājīvikas, the Niganthas and, in fact various denominations." As in the still earlier writings of the Buddhist canon, the name Nigantha was exclusively applied to the followers of Mahāvīra, we can certainly conclude that they were of no small importance at the time of Aśoka. According to the tradition preserved in Hemacandra's Parisiṣṭaparvan,1 Aśoka's grandson Samprati, who resided at Ujjayini, dedicated himself to the cause of Jainism and sent missionaries to the Andhra and Dramila countries in South India. This king is said to have been converted by Suhastin, the celebrated pupil of Sthulabhadra. But inscriptional evidence is wholly lacking in this respect.
However, a century afterwards, i.e. in the first century BC we have the Hathigumpha inscription of Khāravela, king of Kalinga found at Khandagiri near Bhuvaneswar. The larger inscription which is much
11A, XXI. pp. 156ff., EI, pp. 22-24, 339; JRAS, 1909, p. 23.
2Bhandarkar, Report, p. 124, Hoernle in IA, XX, pp. 341-61, XXI, pp. 57-84. SEI, II, p. 274; ZDMG, XLVI, p. 91.
"XI, pp. 89ff.