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106
RELIGION AND CULTURE OF THE JAINS
The genealogy of some of the kings of the Solar and Lunar dynasties given by Jinasena II, like Somadeva, is fanciful. Instead of Parikşit, we are told, one Āryasūnu succeeded Yudhisthira on the throne of Hastinapura. In this connexion, it should be pointed out that the Vaisnava Harivaṁśa19 also gives a curious list of Janamejaya's successors. But it should be remembered that this list occurs in the Bhavisya-parvan of the Harivamsa, undoubtedly a later addition to that work. According to the fanciful list of Janamejaya's successors in Somadeva's translation, 20 Udayana, a contemporary of the Buddha, was separated from Janamejaya, the grandson of Abhimanyu, by three generations (viz. Śatānīka, Sahasrānika and Udayana) only. This not only goes against the epic and Purāņic lists, but also against all the known lists of Janamejaya's successors. It is a matter of regret that a historian like Raychaudhuri 21 should take this list seriously. As a matter of fact, Raychaudhuri's attempt at reconstructing the preBimbisarid political history of India is a disaster as he is obsessed with the Müllerian 1500 B. C. Aryan invasion theory, and that is why he was prepared to accept a comparatively late date for Parikşit and his son. 22
For the student of Indology the most important section of the Jain Harivamsa is that which deals with geography.
19 III, Ch. 1.
20 See Katha., 9.6 69. See also Tawney and Penzer, op. cit., Vol. I, pp. 94ff.
21
PHAI (6th ed.), pp. 32f.
22 He would even assign Janaka, the father of Sita, to the 7th century B.C. (see ibid., p. 52) which would make Rama's father-in-law an older contemporary of Suddhodana. [We are inclined to agree with Raychaudhuri in attaching importance to the traditions in Vedic literature and would attach little or no importance to Epico-puranic myths (cf. The Bharata War and Puranic Genealogies, 18ff., 105ff.). The Aryan advent into India in the middle of the second millennium B.C. has been sought to be supported by the discoveries at Boghaz-koei, Mohenjodaro, Harappa and other places.-Ed.]
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