Book Title: Sramana 2011 07
Author(s): Sundarshanlal Jain, Ashokkumar Singh
Publisher: Parshvanath Vidhyashram Varanasi

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Page 84
________________ Lord Mahavira's Birthplace : 73 the boundaries of 'Videha' from the Ganges to the Himalayas and from, Gandaki to Champaran etc. and the grand status of Mithila, its capital. If Videha was such a great kingdom at the time of our consideration i.e. Mahavira's birth, then how come it does not find a place in the chronicles relevant to that period. Does this Videha really belong to Mahavira's time or it is the land of some other period? Even if we assume that Mahavira was born and brought up in Videha, there is a need to establish beyond doubt the boundaries of this Videha at the time of Mahavira's birth. In view of above, our linguists need to clearly establish the meaning of each of the Videh derivatives in the above text from Ācārānga Sūtra (No 746-Ach 2/15) repeated more or less in the same words in Kalpasūtra (No 110) and we also need to establish whether a state called Videhā existed at that time and what were its boundaries, capital etc. We similarly need to examine Ksatriyakunda a part of Kundagrama, where Mahavira is considered to have been born by Svetāmbaras. Jamāli, the son-in-law of Mahavira, is stated to be a prince of Kșatriyakunda who renounced the world alongwith 500 other princes. Did Siddhartha, the king of Kundagrāma have his seat of power at Kșatriyakuņda a suburb of Kuņdagrām and Jamāli was the son of the Chieftain (called Raja) of this suburb “Kșatriyakuņda”?. And also the possible derivation of the name ‘Licchuad from the clan Licchavi which was greatly decimated during the 12 years war waged upon Vaishali by Kuņika (ājāt atru) the king of Magadh and son of 'Śreņika' (Bimbisar). May be some of the Licchavis migrated to the place which came to be known as Licchuad due to their presence. Various texts mention the birthplace as Kșatriyakunda, Kundapur, Kundal, Kundalpur etc. The earliest literature, Ācārānga, etc refer to it as Kundapurgram Nagar also. We need not necessarily be carried away by grandiose description of the kingdom of Siddhārtha

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