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110
M. A. Dhaky
Jambū-jyoti
the Sthavirāvali embodies a portion which, in point of fact, came from another and, seemingly, somewhat later source. It represents a shorter version (saṁksipta vācană), as against the much more elaborate Phase 3 portion (vistrta vācana), commencing as it does from Arya Yaśobhadra and his two aforenoted disciples and extending further down, through six successive pontiffs, to Arya Vajra's disciple Arya Vajrasena and ending with the names of the latter pontiff's four disciples (c. 1st cent. A.D.)S. But, it is the aforenoted Phase 3 portion, which covers an enlarged version of the second, is very, very important, because it, for the first time, gives detailed denominations along with the succinct indications on the origination of the various gaņas (cohorts), their sākhās (branches), and their kulas (regional and clanal groups), all of these being the subdivisions formed by the specific bands of mendicants. Arguably, the starting point for these group-proliferations temporally must be located a few decades after Arya Bhadrabāhu from whose senior disciple Godāsa, the earliest and hence the very first gana of the Nirgrantha monastic system is reported, as per the northern hagiological tradition, to have emanated. (This may have taken place some time in the latter half of B.C. the third century.) While the list of succession within this Phase 3 (which figures in several manuscripts of the Paryusanā-kalpa) terminates with Arya Phalgumitra (c. early 1st cent. A.D.), some mss. also contain a Phase 4 extension leading up to Arya Skandila (or Sandila)—the 17th pontiff in succession from Ārya Phalgumitra—who presided over the Synod convened in Mathurā inc. V. N. 830-840/A.D. 353-3637. These four successive sections of the sthavirāvali are in prose and were dovetailed to form a single continuous text, largely in Ardhamāgadhī, by casting them into a homogeneous stylistic mould which doubtless reveals a few lately introduced linguistic affectations of the Mahārāstrī Prakrit. The last, or Phase 5, which is the latest portion of the Sthavirāvali, however, is in versified form and unambiguously is rendered in Mahārāstrī Prakrit. It starts from Arya Phalgumitra and, after mentioning the 16th pontiff in succession, namely Arya Dharma who was the guru of Arya Skandila, switches over to Arya Jambū (apparently the confrère of Arya Skandila of whom it takes no notice) and next gives the names of six pontiffs in succession, the sixth being Devarddhi ganī8 who chaired the Valabhi Synod II in A.D. 503, or, according to an alternative tradition, in A.D. 516',
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