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Sxc. 4. HISTORICAL POSITION OF THE T. S.
with a view to beginning a new settlement life, the wisest step to take was to win the royal patronage, for which the capable monks endowed with scholarship and excelled conduct were indispensable. The lay communities had to thus invite the ascetic sanghas not only for their spiritual guidance but also for gaining the imperial favour. The record of Simhanandi Ācārya's aisistance of Malhava I (c.1350 400 A D.) in founding the Ganga dynasty, which is the earliest Jaina epigraphy available in Karaataka, clearly evinces that the Jaina monk was attempting to win an influence over the king.78 Likewise śrutakiri who is called senāpati in the inseription" obviously assisted Kakusthavarman in founding the kadamba dynasty.
Lay communities thus required the assistance of ascetic sanghas and ascetic sanghas also needed the support of lay communities. And the monks practising nudity must have naturally preferred to go to the South, and those wearing clothes likely migrated to the West at large. The waves of the mass exodus of the Jaina communies from Mathurā to all these places seem to have thus happened. Therefore Sauraser i became the language of composition in the South ; whereas the 3rd Valbbi Convention redacted the Mathurā version instead of the Valabhi version of the previous century, which was likely due to the strengh of monks newly emigrated from Mathurā. Then the Mathura vacanā is expected to show the characieristic features of Saura:cti, however the present Agama is characterized by the Mahārāştri elements. No doubt, some canonical texts were composed in the West, the number of which is however small. This phenomenon must be largely due to the gradual change of the language of the canon in the process of the adjustment of the language of the authors into Mabārastri in the West, because the recension of the canonical texts used by the cūrņi authors is said to show the archaic Mahārāștri, while that used by the Sanakrit commentators shows the classical Maharastri.18 (As to this point, the linguistic analysis of the canonical recensions used by the cūini and vitti authors is urgently awaited.)
In the 4th century, Ithe Canonical Convention was held at Matbura and Valabbi. This indicates that a number of monks still remained at Mathurā, but a number of monks had already moved to Valabbi In the 5th century, the Convention was held at Valabhi, which signifies that Valabbi became the centre of the Jainas in the West. Śravanabelgola inscription no. 1 of c. 600 A. D. which is so far the earliest available Jaina epigraphy therein tells that Bhadraba ausvāmi, of the lineage of Gautama, Lobārya ..... Bhadrabāhu, Visakha ...... Buddhila and the other teachers, predicted a twelve years' famine at Ujjain, therefore the entire sangha set out from the North to the South and reached a country filled with bappy people, wealth, gold, cun and domestic animals; then Prabhācandra Ācārya, separating himself from the sangta fasted to death attended by a single disciple on the Katavapura mountain; and in the course of time 700 rsis accomplished samadhi maraņi likewise. The inscriptions at
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