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M. A. Dhaky
course due to the same cause, though it likewise does not identify them. This statement, as regards the four disciples of Bhadrabahu who died by suffering from intense cold, is broadly confirmed by a notice in the Prakirṇaka class of agamic work, the Maraṇasamādhi, a pre-medieval compilatory work, which absorbed the versified content of eight earlier texts, largely of pre-Gupta (Mitra-Saka-Kuṣāṇa) date, within it. Now, the cūrṇi calls these latter four disciples as of vanika or mercantile community. Clearly, then, these four unnamed disciples were different from the former four named and, as their names suggest, of brahmin extraction.
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5) Bhadrabahu's senior disciple Godāsa as well as the latter's disciples, too, must have hailed from Bengal, as indicated by the appellations of the śākhās or branches of mendicants that afterwards had emanated from them, namely the Tamraliptikā, the Koṭivarṣīya, the Paundravardhanikā, and the Dasikharvatikā. Of these, at least the first three definitely were named after the then existing ancient towns in Bengal.
Jambu-jyoti
6) The authorship of the three agama-category of works, namely the Daśāśrutaskandha, the Kalpa, the Vyavahara, as also of the Niryuktis traditionally is attributed to Bhadrabahu in the Śvetāmbara sect. Of these, the first three texts, afterwards classified under the Chedasutra category that dwells on the rules for acara or monastic discipline, the Kalpa alone and, plausibly, for its larger part (which seems ancient and largely uniform in style), may have been his work. The Niryuktis seemingly are as late as early sixth century A.D., of course partly based on older material. (The Logassasutta induded within the Avasyaka compendium is a hymn to the 24 Jinas and ascribed to Bhadrabahu by Śīlācārya in his Acārānga-vṛtti [latter half of the 9th cent. A.D.]. However, as I elsewhere have suggested, it could have been the inaugural hymn of the Prathamänuyoga of Arya Syama 1 (c. 1st cent. B.C -A.D.), which was the earliest work to notice the 24 tirthankaras, giving as it also did their biographical (in most cases of course overtly fictitious) sketches.) The Śvetāmbaras also attribute the famous magical and very popular hymn, the Uvasaggahara-thotta [Upasargahara-stotra], composed in the Mahārāṣtrī Prākṣta, to Bhadrabāhu. (In the Digambara sect, it is believed to be a composition by Manatungācārya, c. late 6th-early 7th cent. A.D., an equally erroneous and hence untenable ascription,) That work, as is obvious by its language, style, content, and spirit seems a composition by
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