Jainism in North India

Author(s): Chimanlal J Shah
Publisher: Longmans Green and Compny London

Page 22

INTRODUCTION richly decorated Ayāgapatas and Toranas of the Mathura find, the beautıful free-standing pillars on the mountain masses of Girnar and Satruñjaya, the admirable architecture in the Jaina temples at Mount Abu, and elsewhere, are sufficient to evoke the interest of any student of Indian history. Likewise it is impossible, in the region of religion, to appreciate the real force that was behind the great Sankarācārya or the great Dayānanda without following the reactions of centuries of Jaina and Buddhist influence.
These movements in literature, art and religion could not have succeeded but under the wings of royal patronage. Hence our study must necessarily start with tracing the fortunes of Jainism at royal courts, as in its course it "becomes the state religion of certain kingdoms, in the sense that it was adopted and encouraged by certain kings, who carried with them many of their subjects.” 1
But the task is certainly a thorny one. There is no single work which is a complete survey of Jainism in North India; yet it is no mere blank, neither any medley of historical and legendary names, religious parables, and epic and Agamic myths, heaped up pell-mell. For then in vain have the thousands of ancient Jaina Sädhus and scholars toiled to preserve those elaborate compositions handed down from generation to generation by a feat of memory which is considered a miracle in modern days; and in vain, too, most eminent Indian and foreign scholars and antiquarians have worked during the last hundred and fifty years, if it be still impossible to put together the results of their learned researches in the shape of a connected history such as is intelligible to the gencral reader and useful to the student.
Although many portions of Jaina history are still obscure, and although many questions of details are still a bone of contention, to construct a general history of the Jama epochs is happily no longer a desperate undertaking. Desperate or not, we must frankly disclaim any pretensions to discoveries of our own, as well as to extend in any way the limits of Oriental scholarship and research.
In conclusion a word must be added with regard to the denotation of the term "North India." In a limited sense the expression "South India” is applied only to the districts lying south of the Krishna and the Tungabhadra rivers, the portion north of these rivers usually being called the Deccan. But South and North India, south and north respectively of the Narbada and the Mahanadı, 1 Smith, op.al, p. 55.
xiü