Religion and Culture of the Jains

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

Page 54

SM. K. BAJPEYI
kula indicates 'succession of teachers in one line', and sākhă 'the lines which branch off from each teacher'. He further holds that the modern gaccha is the same as the ancient gaņa.
In addition to the Ganins, the inscriptions 88 record the names of several Vācakas (preachers) of the Jain community. That there was perhaps no restriction for a single person to hold the two positions simultaneously, is suggested by two Kuşāņa records mentioning one person as both Gaṇin and Vācaka.. Thus the Jain church was a well organised community in the early centuries of the Christian era.
Inscriptions show that the followers of the Jain creed belonged mostly to the trading class. That the foreigners were sometimes converted to Jainism is evident from two inscriptions, 88 the first of which records the dedication of an image of Mahāvira by Okhārikā, Ujhatikā, Okhā, Sirika and Sivadina in the year 292 of the Parthian era, while the second mentions the setting up of an image of Vardhamāna by Okhārikā, the daughter of Dimitra. Lüders88 has pointed out that the said names are of foreign origin.
83 Lüders' List, Nos, 22, 27-30, 42, 45, 47, 50, 53-54, 56-58, 110, 112 ; JUPHS, Vols. XXIV-XXV, p. 219; Lüders, Math. Ins., p. 39.
84 Lüders' List, No. 50, states that Dinara was a great preacher as well as the head of the Varanagana, while in another record (ibid., No. 29) Ja-mitra (?) was at the same time the preacher and the head of the Koffiyagana.
85 D. R. Bhandarkar Volume, ed. B. C. Law, 1940, p. 282 ; Ep. Ind., Vol. XIX, p. 67.
86 D. R. Bhandarkar Volume, pp. 283-84.