Temple of Satrunjaya

Author(s): Jain Bhawan Publication
Publisher: Jain Bhawan Publication

Page 37

IV
of the very early history of Gujarat very little is known. The tradition of Krsna's residence, and other references seem to indicate that an early principality existed in Saurashtra ; and a Greek writer of the second century speaks of the peninsula as then under one rule.54 From coins we obtain the names55 of kings between twenty and thirty of the Sah dynasty from Nahapana B.C. 60 or 70 to Svami Rudra Sah in the middle of the third century A.D. Then follows the Valabhi dynasty, known to us principally from copper-plate grants dug up on the site of the ancient capital a few miles from Bhavnagar. Wathen, Lassen and Dr. Bhau Daji56 have each endeavoured to construct the genealogy and chronology of this dynasty, but the differences in the dates assigned are considerable-thus Dharasena II or Sridharasena I is placed by Wathen in A.D. 319, by Lassen in 530, and by Dr. Bhau Daji about 400-404; Dhruvasena III is placed in A.D. 660 by Lassen, and in 410 by Dr. Bhau, who brings Siladitya IV not earlier than 425, whilst Wathen ascribed to him the epoch of A.D. 559.
HISTORICAL NOTICES
If the Mahatmya is to be trusted, the author of it converted one Siladitya to Jainism. Tradition adds that he was at first a Jaina but had been converted to Buddhism after a public disputation held at his court, and that, after finally embracing the Jaina religion, he restored and embellished the Satrunjaya temples. Our next notice is in the Kalpa Sutra" which, if we might believe its own statement, was composed about A.D. 453. It mentions the prince then reigning as Dhruvasena, and makes his capital Anandapura, now Badnagar. But internal evidences cast doubts on the age of these compositions, and Wilson asserts that the latter "could not have been composed earlier than the twelfth or thirteenth century", 58 while the presumption seems strong against a much earlier antiquity belonging to the former.
54 Vincent's Periplus, p. 111. (Note on Mambarus).
55 Dr. Bhau Daji, Jour. Bomb. Br. R. As. Soc., Vol. VIII. pp. 243-244 and Mr. Justice Newton, ib., Vol. IX. pp. 1-19.
56 Wathen, Jour. Bomb. Br. R. As. Soc., Vol. III. p. 215; Jour. Asiat. Soc. of Bengal, Vol. IV. p. 480, etc., and Princep's Indian Antiquities, Vol. I. pp. 252-264; Lassen, Indische Alterthumskunde, III. pp. 1159-1160; Dr. Bhau Daji, ut. sup., p. 245.
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57 Stevenson, Kalpa Sutra, p. 15.
58 H. H. Wilson, Works, Vol. I. p. 330, Asiat. Res., Vol. XVII. pp. 281-282.