Book Title: Tulsi Prajna 2006 04
Author(s): Shanta Jain, Jagatram Bhattacharya
Publisher: Jain Vishva Bharati

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Page 102
________________ must infer that it was, at some period subsequent to the Păţaliputra council, wholly or partly restored. If my interpretation of 1.16 is right, we here seem to have an authentical record of part of this restoration. We hear about a coyathiaga, which is characterized as satikamtariya and which Khāravela has restored. Satikamtariyam I would explains as containing the word sattikā, Sanskrit saptikā, i.e. a treatise comprising seven chapters. Now we know that the Parikamma, the first part of the Drstivāda, contained seven chapters, and I am therefore inclined to think that this is the text mentioned as restored by Khāravela. Coyathiaga would represent a Sanskrit catuhşastyanga, an Anga consisting of sixty-four sections. We are told in later texts that the Parikamma comprised eighty-three such subdivisions. If I am right in thinking that the Hāthīgumphā inscription contains a reference to that text, we must infer that only sixty-four were included in the recension restored by Khāravela. I have not myself sufficient insight in the vast literature of the Jainas, and I am quite aware of the fact that my interpretation may prove to be open to correction. I think, however, that the most natural translation of the passage is :, 'he restores the sixty four section Anga, that had become obsolute at the time of the Maurya king, included in a saptika'. At all events, I feel convinced that the passage can only be interpreted in the way indicated by the late Dr. Fleet. L. 16 thus contains a valuable confirmation of an important point in Jaina tradition but no date, and the so-called Maurya era has certainly never existed. So far I am in entire agreement with Dr. Fleet. But I cannot follow him when he thinks that the inscription can be dated by what it contains in 1.11. He maintains that the line speaks of a town that had been ruined 113 years previously, and infers that must have happened when Aśoka conquered Kalinga, i.e., according to him in B.C. 256. The events mentioned in 1.11 refer to Khāravela's eleventh year, which would accordingly coincide with B.C. 143. The correct reading of the beginning of 1.11 has not as yet been settled. If we abstract from the first akşaras, the state of things is as follows: Cunningham's lithograph has puvarājanivesātam pithuda gadamanadhedhonakasamyamta janam padabhāvana ce terasavase satāka bhidasi The 4511 3712 - F, 2006 - 97 Jain Education International For Private & Personal Use Only www.jainelibrary.org

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