Some Aspects of Jainism in Eastern India

Author(s): Pranabananda Jash
Publisher: Munshiram Manoharlal Publisher's Pvt Ltd New Delhi

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Twenty-Four Tirthankaras and Their Activities and Teachings
confederacy of the east, became a patron of his order, and Kunika king of Magadha, also a staunch follower of him. He used to wander for eight months of the year and spend four months of the rainy seasons in Campā and Prsticampā. twelve rainy seasons at Vaiśāli and its suburb Vāņijyagrāma, fourteen at Rājagsha, six in Mithilā, two in Bhadrikā and the remaining four of the 42 years of his itinerary respectively, at Alabhikā. Puņitabhūmi, Śrāvasti and Pāvāpuri.86 It is stated in the Jaina text that at first he wandered single, but now he had surrounded himself with many monks and teaches everyone of them the law at length.”87 He had an excellent community of 14,000 śramaņas with Indrabhūti at their head and 36,000 nuns with Candanā at their head and of innumerable lay votaries and hundreds of sages to preach his tenets.88 At the age of seventy-two, Mahāvira passed away in perfect health while delivering his last sermon,89 at Pāvā which, it is widely believed, is to be near Nalanda in Bihar.90 The Kalpa. sūtra states that “The venerable ascetic Mahāvīra lived thirty years as a householder, and then twelve years and six months and a full half month more a sage only in outward guise (Chadmastha, that is, an ascetic, not yet possessed of perfect knowledge); thirty years less six a holy month in the exercise of perfect wisdom, altogether having lived seventy-two years."91
After the demise of Mahāvīra, the leadership of all the four orders of Jaina community, viz. monks. nuns laymen and laywomen, fell on his disciple Indrabhūti who was the head of the Jaina organisation for a period of twelve years. 9. He was succeeded by Sudharman. the fifth of the eleven ganadharas who also held that post for another twelve years. The Kalpa-sūtra gives a list of these ganadharas starting with Sudharman and ends with the thirty-third patriarch Śāndilya or Skandila. In most of the cases their names and gotras are given, but there is also an elaborate list from the sixth, Bhadravāhu, to the fourteenth. Vajrasena, which adds more details, i.e., the disciples of each patriarch and of the sects and branches (gaņa, kula and sākhā) originating with
them.93 In this connection it may by mentioned that we have also · later lists of teachers (Gurvāvali. Pattāvali) of different sects
(Gacchas: etc.) which give a summary account from Mahāvīra down to the founder of the sect in question, and then a more detailed one of the line of descent from the latter downward, and with particulars of subsequent heads of the sect called Sripūjya. So