Jainism in India

Author(s): Ganesh Lalwani
Publisher: Prakrit Bharti Academy

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JAINISM IN INDIA
In 1916, he published the Vijñaptitriveni from the original copy prepared under the supervision of its author, Upadhyaya Jayasagara, immediately after its composition in sam. 1484. The Vijñaptitriveņī is a lengthy report of the author's pilgrimage to Nagarkot in sam. 1484. Such reports are called vijñaptipatras and were written by monks to their gurus to inform them of the religious acts performed during the year.
The Vijñaptitriveni offers a vivid picture of the pilgrims' party starting from Faridpur on the south bank of the Vipasa and reaching Nagarkot on Jyestha śuklā 5, sam. 1484 after crossing the Banganga. The route and the places visited are carefully described. The outward journey was made by a different route from the return journey. A mention is also made of the battle that was going on at the time between the Khokhar chief, Yasoratha, and the Muslim ruler Sikandar. The Vijñaptitriveni provides a useful information about the topography of the Punjab. Some of the images seen by K. N. Sitaram in the Kangra valley probably belonged to the temples visited by the pilgrims' party in sam. 1484.
6. Sindhudesa—A few centuries ago the territory above the confluence of the Punjab rivers with the Indus was known as Sindhudesa. It included roughly the present districts of Multan, Muzaffargarh and Montgomery. In olden times this region was an active centre of Jainism, connected more intimately with Gujarat and Marwar than with the Punjab proper.
One of its chief cities was Multan. In sam. 1169 Jinadatta Suri of the Kharatara-gaccha was staying there during the rainy season (căturmāsa). Here the Komala-gaccha was predominant but Jinadatta paid more attention to his own followers of the Kharatara-gaccha. The followers of the Komala-gaccha took it as an insult and conspired with the ruler of the place to put an end to the Kharataras. The ruler enquired how to distinguish a follower of the Kharatara-gaccha from that of the Komala. The reply was that the Komalas applied saffron mark on their forehead whereas the Kharataras did not. Somehow the Kharataras got a scent of the conspiracy against them. Their leader, Hathi, went to the ruler's wife and succeeded in getting the orders reversed, i.e., those without a mark on the head were to be executed. Thereupon the followers of the Komala-gaccha wiped off the mark and many of them came over to the Kharatara fold.
Jinadatta Suri is said to have established the pañcanadi pūjā, i.e., the worship of the combined stream of the five rivers of the Punjab.