Studies in the Bhagavati Sutra

Author(s): J C Sikdar
Publisher: Research Institute of Prakrit Jainology & Ahimsa Mujjaffarpur

Page 495

Siman
470 STUDIES IN THE BHAGAWATİ SŪTRA [Ch. VIII
Similarly the opinions of a few scholars' that Devānandā was the foster-mother (nurse) may be rejected on the ground that she appears in the Bhs as a rich aristocratic lady, followed by a retinue of servants and waiting maids belonging to different Indian tribes and foreign nationalities.
It seems plausible on the evidences of the Bhs that Lord Mahāvīra may be the son of Devānandā or he was the son of Trisalā according to the Digambara tradition which does not believe in the story of the transfer of his embryo.
Birth-place of Lord Mahāvīra
The determination of the exact location of the birth-place of Lord Mahāvīra is interlinked with the solution of the problem of his parentage.
The genuine evidences of purely human trait as depicted in the scene of the accidental meeting of the Master with his mother Devänandā, i.e. the flow of milk from her breast on the recognition of her former son in him, and the sensational self-revelation of the incident of his birth in the Brāhman, family, suggest that he was born in Brāhmaṇakundagrāma to the west of which lay Ksatriya-kundagrāma.
But according to the Kalpa Sūtra he was born in the Ksatriya family of king Siddhārtha of Ksatriyakundagrāma.
In connection with these conflicting statements the epithet *Vesālie's occuring in two places of the Bhs is of great importance in reference to the designation of Lord Mahāyīra himself.
Thus it is said in the Skandaka Uddeśaka that there lived a Nirgrantha Vaiśālika Srāvaka named Pingalaka in the city of Srāvasti.
There is the other statement of historical colouring that the Sramanopāsikā, the princess Jayanti, the aunt of king
i See 'Darśava and Cintana'; Bühler : The Indian Sect of the
Jainas. ? Bhs, 2, 1, 90; 12, 2, 441.
3 16, 2, 1, 90.