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Shri Mahavir Jain Aradhana Kendra www.kobatirth.orgAcharya Shri Kailashsagarsuri Gyanmandir
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in the 5th year of the reign of king Vijayasambhava who ascended the throne 165 years after the establishmeut of the kingdom in 234 B.E.1 It is during the reign of the eighth successor of this king that the doctrines of the Mahasanghika school were brought into the country by the eldest son of the king who entered the Buddhist order under the name of Dharmananda and went to India. The doctrine of the Sarvâstivada school of the Lesser Vehicle was introduced into the country by the venerable Mantrasiddhi who was called from India during the following reign. Thus Khotan became a meeting ground of the doctrines of two Buddhist schools shortly before the invasion of India by Vijayakirti, the 11th successor of Vijayasambhava and Kaniska, the king of Gu-zan. These traditions are important as showing how it became possible to compile a Dhammapada in Khotan as a synthesis of two older texts in Mixed Sanskrit, one belonging to the Mahasanghika school and another to the sarvâstivada or Sautrantika. The probable date of its compilation must be referred to a time about five centuries after Buddha's demise, say, the 1st century B.C. or A.D. The result obtained is supported by the fact that the Prakrit Dhammapada differs from the Pali and the original of the Fa-kheuking by the inclusion of many verses from the Suttanipata, the Mahabharata and the Jataka Book. Curiously enough, most of the verses from the latter source are to be found in the Jalakas illustrated by bas-reliefs at Bharhut. Here we
Life of the Buddha, p. 237.
Ibid, p. 239. Dr. F. W. Thomas says that Dharmananda was the second son, see his notes on Rockhill's summary of the Annals of Khotan in Stein's Ancient Khotan, Vol. I, App. E, p. 581. cf. Sten Konow's views in the Festschrift Ernst Windisch, p. 95 ff.
* According to Thomas, his name was Samantasiddhi. He seems to have brought about a reconciliation between the adherents of the Mahasanghika and Sarva stiväda doctrines.
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