Mahavira Jain Vidyalay Suvarna Mahotsav Granth Part 1

Author(s): Mahavir Jain Vidyalaya Mumbai
Publisher: Mahavir Jain Vidyalay

Page 771

292 : SHRI MAHAVIRA JAINA VIDYALAYA GOLDEN JUBILEE VOLUME
hot hours, were transferred, we are told by later Jaina prabandhas, to safer sanctuaries; to Devapattana (Prabhas Patan), to Vardhamana (Wadhwan), and to Bhillamāla (Bhinmal).
Jainism did not supplant Buddhism molecule by molecule, piece by piece, place by place; in expanse it covered many more sites (some of which later on grew to be its potential centres) where Buddhism never held sway, it would seem, at any date, early or late. Some of the well-known towns and cities of the mediaeval period were not even founded when Buddhism had its heyday in Gujarat. Anhilapāțaka (Patan) which came to be established in 746 (according to Jaina tradition) by Vanarāja Căpotkața, a little township, an humble capital to a principality, was to become a focal centre, a proud and prosperous metropolis of an empire in the twelfth century. There, Prince Vanarāja founded a temple to Pārsvanātha of Pancasar. An immigrant from Rajasthan, Prāgvāța Ninnaya, the ancestor of Governor Vimala of Dilwara fame, built a temple to Jina Rşabha at the newly founded capital for the benefit of Vidyadhara Kula of the Svetämbara Church. At the same moment, at Thārāpadra (Tharad) in North-west Gujarat, Vateśarasuri of Candra Kula established Thārāpadra Gaccha: at the centre of its emanation a temple to Jina Rşabha was in existence.
Digambara Jainism, too, is known to be followed in a few centres in Gujarat area in this age. At Vardhamāna it had a temple sacred to Pārsvanātha (Nannarāja Vasati) where Jinasena wrote his Harivamsa Purāņa in 783. This work was adored in the temple of śāntinātha at Dostaţikā as mentioned in the same work. Yet another work composed at Vardhamana, now in 931-32, was the Brhatkathakośa of Harisena.? Harivamśa Purāņa refers to Simhavāhanā Sāsanadevi Ambikā (atop Mt. Girnar) whose origin is associated with Koţtināri (Kodinar) on the west coast of Saurashtra.za By the end of eighth century, the sectaries
6 Prabandhacintāmani (1305) of Merutunga, sarga 50; Satyapura
tirthakalpa (1311) inside Vividhatirthakalpa of Jinaprabha; and Ms. P (1472) in Purātana Prabandha Samgraha edited by Muni
Jinavijaya : all published in Singhi series, Bombay. 7 SANDESARA, B. J., Wadhavan-māṁ racãyelā be Digambara Jaina
grantho (Gujarati), Journal of the Saurashtra Research Society' Vol. I, No. 2, Sept. 1957. Both Jinasena and Harişeņa belonged to
the Punnāța Samgha of the Digambara Sect. 7a SHAH, U. P., Iconography of the Jaina Goddess Ambikä, Journal of
the University of Bombay', Vol. IX, pt. 2, Sept. 1940.