Jinamanjari 2000 04 No 21

Author(s): Jinamanjari
Publisher: Canada Bramhi Jain Society Publication

Page 15

institutions being accredited as educational centers, which were often had a Jain basadi connected for religious precepts and practices as part of the curriculum. They were ancient schools of learning comparablee to that of the present universities.
Subhatunga Indra, father of Dantidurga, governor of Lata, commissioned Subhatunga-Vasati, a Jaina temple in Vātagrāmapura (Vāțana-gara, Vādner in Nāsik district of Mahārāśtra), which has the modern name of Vāņi village near Dindori. “In the small range of Candor hills located at about eight kms north of Nāsik, there are a series of caves known as Cambharlen caves which were used by the Jaina ascetics as their habitat. There was an educational institution attached to the place. Professor Jyoti Prasad Jain has compared this institution to that of the modern university. According to him, the Vātgram university was possibly established by the Pancastūpānvaya ascetics who were later came to be known as Senagana in Decan. In the fifth century C. E., one of the famous scholars of the group, Guņanandi traveled from Vāraṇāsi to Pahadpur in Bengal where his disciples established a famous center called Batgobāli. In the sixth C.E., another scholar - Rşabhanandi traveled to the south. {His pupil] Srisena [had as pupil] Candrasenācārya who lived in the first part of the eighth C.E. [and] anticipating the expansion of the Rāstrakūa empire, he founded the Vātgram University in Candor hills."[Jinamañjari, Vol.9, No.1, April 1994] The University flourished for about 150 years. Ācārya Nayanandi who composed Sudarsana Carite in C. E. 1042 refers to the University and this reference, according to Jyoti Prasad Jain, "suggests that Nayanandi himself had visited and seen this institution and wrote in praise of what had been not only heard but seen.” “ The University of Vātgram, in its time and its place, surely stands in the ranks of Taxila, Nalanda and Vikramsil institutions of (earlier) India."
The traditional canonical and primordial Prākrit text Şațkhandāgama (SixSectioned Canon) is one of the oldest aphoristic post-canonical work in the Jaina system belonging to Digambara tradition. Saint Dharasena transmitted it to his two disciples -- Puspadanta and Bhūtabali, who committed the Āgamic knowledge to writing during the Mahāvira Era 614-683, which corresponds to C. E. 87-156. The first section was composed by Puspadanta and the other five sections were composed by Bhūtabali.
Of the many voluminous commentaries known to have been written on the Şatkhandāgama, only Dhavala of Virasena (C. E. 743-820) has become well known. The composition is said to have begun in the year C. E. 792 and completed on the 8th of October C. E. 816. (Jinamañjari , Vol. 18, No.2 October 1998]
Professor Jyoti Prasad Jain has observed that Virasena (circa C. E. 710790) was possibly of royal descent being an illegitimate son of Mori (Maurya) king Dhava?appadeva of Citogadh in Rājāsthan. He was at Vātgram university and he was sent to study Jain siddhānta under Elācārya, one of the great scholars of canonical works of the times, at Citrakūtpur (Cittor). Returning to Vātgram institution where Rector Ācārya Aryanandi had initiated the studies on canonical works such as the Şaskhandāgama, Virasena - who had become proficient in Agamas - undertook the gigantic commentary work. Jayasena was
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