Jainas in History of Indian Literature

Author(s): Jinvijay
Publisher: ZZZ Unknown

Page 50

JAINA WORKS ON POLITICS
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female and young animals and castration”. But this may refer merely to the pacification of a country in which part of the inhabitants are Jainas or Bauddhas, though even in the Brahmanic Dharmaśāstras Ahimsā is proclaimed as a virtue, and the rule of Kautilya may mean no more than that a king should try to win the sympathies of his new subjects by showing himself as a mild and virtuous ruler... **In the Durganiveśa chapter of the Kautiliya (p. 55 f) we are told that in the centre of the city sheds should be erected for "Aparājita, Apratihata, Jayanta and Vaijayanta and temples for Siva, Vaisravaņa, the Asvins, Śrī and Madurā. Shama Sastri has compared to this passage the list of Anuttara gods mentioned in the Uttarajjhayana: Vijayas, Vijayantas, Jayantas, Aparājitas and Sarvārthasiddhas. And it seems to be a general opinion that Jaina deities are meant here. But if we compare the two passages, we shall see that only three of the names correspond to one another. Aparājita, Vaijayanta and Jayanta, while Apratihata has nothing corresponding in the Uttarajjhayana, and Sarvārthasiddha has nothing corresponding in the Kautilīya. There is, however, no reason at all to see in these names in the Arthasāstra the names of Jaina deities. For Aparājita, Jayanta and Vaijayanta are also names of Skanda and other Hindu deities, while Apratihata is an otherwise unknown name. It is most likely, as my pupil Dr. Stein' has shown, that we have to think in
1 Dr." Otto Stein, Megasthenos und Kautilya, Wien
1.921, p. 295 f.' . ..