Religion and Culture of the Jains

Author(s): D C Sirkar
Publisher: University of Calcutta

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RELIGION AND CULTURE OF THE JAINS
in greater details the achievements of Krşņa-Vāsudeva and, in doing so, he has followed the Vaişņava Harivaṁsa, but deliberately distorted the epic account and has offered a new version. He referred to the ruling dynasties and mentioned the names of contemporary: kings. Of those families, Dr. Chatterjee said, the Khaļgas ruled in East Bengal in the 7th century A.D. and the Mallas were probably the Mallas of Mahābodhi mentioned in an inscription of Dharmapāla. He further referred to the duration of Gupta rule given by Jinasena as 231 years and the mention of Karņasuvarņa by the latter.
Dr. S. R. Das wanted to know the date of Jinasena. Dr. Chatterjee answered that the date is given by the author himself in the colophon of the work as Saka 705, corresponding to 783 A. D. As regards the tradition about the duration of Gupta rule for 231 years, Prof. D. C. Sircar observed that the same tradition is mentioned side by side with another giving the duration as 255 years in the Jain work Tiloyapannatti by Jadi Vasaha and pointed out that both of them may be regarded as correct, the first suggesting the collapse of Gupta rule in U. P. about 550 A. D. and the latter pointing to its extirpation in Orissa about 574 A.D. Prof. Sircar further observed that the Mallas might be those of the age of the Buddha and doubted whether the Khadgas were the same as those ruling in Bengal. He did not believe that the Kathāsaritsāgara is an exact Sanskrit translation of Guņādhya's Byhatkathā since the Vikramāditya section must have been later interpolated. He further pointed out that both the Buddhists and the Jains enjoyed distorting stories found in Brāhmaṇical literature.
Dr. A. M. Shastri next read his paper entitled 'Varāhamihira and Bhadrabāhu' in which he tried to prove that the contemporaneity of Srutakevalin Bhadrabāhu and Varāhamihira contemplated by Merutunga and Rajasekharasūri must be rejected as it goes against Varāhamihira's own work. An examination of the available Bhadrabāhusaṁhità proves that it has nothing to do with any of the personages bearing the name Bhadrabāhu and that it is later than Varāhamihira's