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154
The Unknown Pilgrims
A - At the brithplace of Lord Kșşņa: Mathurā
What name is there more venerated or more frequently pronounced than that of Krşna, the Lord to be adored? Krşna, whose story from his infancy onwards is so popular as to be universally known from North to South, Krşna, the Lord of all, since even the Jainas have adopted him.46 A very popular tradition names Mathurä as the place of his birth.47 A well-known town, Mathurā was in antiquity the capital of the region of Sūrasena and was also known by the name of Uttaramathură, Mathură of the North, to distinguish it from Daksinamathură, Mathură of the South, which is present-day Madurai.48 This same town, which in our day would be insignificant if it were not associated with the name of Lord Kțşņa, has regained since the end of the last century a certain renown, for between the years 1871 and 1890, in the course of successive excavations, a large number of images and inscriptions belonging to the ruins of two temples and of a stūpa were dug up;49 these proved to be discoveries of considerable importance, especially for the history of Jainism and Buddhism, of both of which Mathurā was a flourishing centre from, in all probability, the IIIrd of Ilnd century B.C.50 and particularly so
46 Cf. P 103.
47 Cf. Bhāgavatapurāņa, Book X.
Cf. PPN, pp. 589-590; 852.
49 Cf. Smith, 1969, Introd.
50"Our analysis has further shown that the history of Jaina finds at Mathurā dates from at least the second century B.C. and does not merely begin with the Kuşāņa age." U.P. Shah, 1955, p. 84. It is possible that the presence of Jainism in this region goes back to a still earlier epoch. There is to be found there the ruins of a stúpa, a circualr monument usually constructed with bricks, which, among the Jainas and Buddhists, is the repositary of relics or is built to the memory of venerated persons; and in this stūpa one can see an inscription of the IInd c. saying that it is 'devanirmita', that is, built by the gods (Bühler, EI, vol. II, inscr. xx); this is a way of saying that its origin is already at the time of the inscription so distant that it is unknown. U.P. Shah
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