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Early History of Jainism and Migrations.... : 5
as taking place after twelve-year famines. The first council, which is not acknowledged by the Digambaras, was held in Pāțaliputra (modern Patna, Bihar) 160 years after the death of Mahāvīra, sometime in the 4th century BCE. According to the Svetāmbara Jains, at this time the number of argas was reduced to 11, with the complete loss of the Drstivāda. The next council33 took place simultaneously in Mathurā and Valabhī, 827 years after the death of Mahāvīra. The final council took place at Valabhi between 453 or 466 CE.34 At this time the Jaina canon was written down in manuscript form. Dundas refers to this council as the "catalyst for the final hardening of boundaries between the Svetāmbaras and the Digambaras,”35 as it marks the stabilization of the Jaina canon by one sect(Svetāmbaras) in contradistinction to the other.
The significance of these councils cannot be over-stated. They provide immense insight into the ways in which Jains view their history and received knowledge of Jaina dharma. It is worth quoting Dundas at length:
The accounts of these recitations are interesting for the insight they give about the Jain view of a gradually disintegrating scriptural corpus, although they hardly have eyewitness status. For example, the earliest accounts of any of the recitations date from the second half of the seventh century, while the references to twelve-year famines represent virtually a figure of speech in Jain literature, not to be taken literally, signifying some degree of discord in the community or political instability. ... [A] working hypothesis would be to see the issue at stake in the second and third recitations as not the literal disappearance of the scriptures or the lack of authoritative sources as a result of the death of learned monks through famine, but rather the stabilisation and control of an originally oral tradition whose integrity was being undermined by the increasing proliferation of manuscript versions.36
Dundas highlights some important points. First, endemic to the history of Jainism is this reoccurring motif of loss and recuperation. There is always a sense of uncertainty. As we are living in the Sāmānya Pūrvadhara era, we only know a part of the actual canon. Moreover, we are living in a period where liberation (mokṣa) and omniscience (kevali), ultimate knowledge of both the scriptures (śruti) as well as of reality in general, are no longer possible. Thus, we perpetually find ourselves battling against some obscurity of knowledge. Second, from a nonJain perspective, one can approach this anxiety as a socio-historical process, as Dundas has done, in the sense that the survival and perpetuation of the Jain community necessitated a stabilization of the canon in a time of instability. This period of the ancient councils (c. 4th century BCE to 5th century CE) and increase in manuscript production is also the period that witnessed the spread of Jainism across the Indian subcontinent and the formation and differentiation of the Svetāmbara and Digambara sects. It is from this period of instability and transition that the illustrious figure of Bhadrabāhu emerges.
III. The Bhadrabāhu-Chandragupta Tradition and the Migration to South India
gh there were certainly multiple migrations of Jains from north to south India 37 and vice versa, the earliest migration is estimated to have taken place during the 3rd to 4th centuries
