Mahavira Jain Vidyalay Suvarna Mahotsav Granth Part 1

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

Page 779

300 : SHRI MAHAVIRA JAINA VIDYALAYA GOLDEN JUBILEE VOLUME
territorial or racial outlook. They were concerned more with the Faith and the Following, not so much with the linguistic, regnal and regional criteria. They treated Western India as a single unit. They moved freely from kingdom to kingdom and received the same honour from each quarter, although the political relations among the different Western Indian states were oftener very tense. Much do we owe to these travelling Jaina monks of the mediaeval period who fostered and forged the overall cultural unity of Western India.
From the pattavalis21, prabandhas22 and epigraphic sources, we obtain detailed information on the various sub-orders, their internal organization and their inter-relationships, and, the pious deeds of the monks themselves. The number of followers initiated to the order of the monks was staggering. Spiritual quest apart, and the zeal for the propagation of the Faith apart, many among them had achieved distinction in the field of learning: their literary pursuits have contributed substantially to the enrichment and preservation of the cultural heritage of Western India, and, established a tradition whose impact continues to be felt to this day. The great stalwarts of Jainism were important not only to the Sect; some of them were among the great sons of India, and worthy of her humanitarian, magnanimous civilization. To the earlier ones including great Haribhadrasūri of Vidyādhara Kula, we made a brief reference in the foregoing pages. There were silānka and Siddharși of Nivștti Kula, Nannasūri, Pradyumnasūri, Abhayadevasūri, Dhaneśvarasuri and Dharmaghosasuri of Rājagachha23, Yaśobhadrasūri of Sanderaka Gaccha, Abhayadevasūri and Vadidevasūri of Vada Gaccha,24 Jineśvarasūri, Jinavallabha and Jinadattasūri of Kharatara Gachha,25 and, towering above all, Hemacandra of Purnatalla Gaccha whose names will be remembered in the annals of the religion and culture of India.
The svetāmbara Jainism possessed some inherent qualities, special features, which were equally instrumental in its luxuriant flowering as well as survival in Western India. Its philosophy, but also its high ethics, its peaceable disposition, but also its stoicism, its persuasive power, but above all its faculty of accommodation com
21 See Pattāvali Samuccaya by Darsanavijaya. 22 Prabandha works mentioned under foot-note No. 6. 23 See Jaina paramparā-no Itihasa by TRIPUTI MAHARAJA. 24 Ibid. 25 Ibid.