Comprehensive History Of Jainism

SR No.: 022803
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: Aseem Kumar Chatterjee
Publisher: Munshiram Manoharlal Publishers Pvt Ltd
Publication Year: 2000
Total Pages: 360
Language: English
Classification: Book_English
File Size: 28 MB

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APPENDIX A
years. Aśoka's grandson Dasaratha was certainly a patron of the Ajīvika religion, for we have three brief inscriptions of this emperor in the Nāgārjuni Hill (Gayā district, Bihar) according to which he made gifts of cave-dwellings to t
as. In the Arthaśāstra (III.20) of Kautilya and in the Mahābhāsya (III.96) of Patañjali the Ājīvikas are mentioned. In the latter work Patañjali, the author, shows his acquaintance with the principal doctrine of the Ajīvikas. Patañjali distinctly says that the Ajīvikas deny the freedom of the will. The Mahāvamsa (X.102) informs us that the Ajīvikas could be seen in Sri Lanka during the reign of Pāņdukābhaya, who ruled in the fourth century BC which proves that after the death of Gośāla, Ajivikism penetrated into southern India including Sri Lanka. This is testified to by the references to the Ājīvikas in the Tamil Sangam literature. In a fifth-century inscription" found from Nellore district (A.P.) of the reign of Simhavarman Pallava there is a reference to the Ajīvikas which shows that monks of this sect flourished in this part of India at that time. Varāhamihira (early sixth century) and his commentator Utpala (tenth century) know the Ājīvikas. 45 On a basis of a wrong statement by Utpala, D.R. Bhandarkar16 came to the conclusion that, in the later days, the Ajīvikas were identical with Vaisnavas. Basham 17 has however shown that this theory is purely speculative. The Āiivikas were also known to Kumāradāsa, 48 as is evident from his Jānakīharana, which was probably composed during the closing years of the seventh century. 49 There are also references to them in several south Indian inscriptions of a much later period, but by ad 1200, they vanished completely from history.50
REFERENCES
1. For details see Malalasekera, DPPN, I, pp. 385 ff. 2. Majjhima, I, pp. 160–75; see also Malalasekera, op. cit., 1, pp. 179–80. 3. See Jataka, 1.81; Mahāvagga, trans., I.B. Horner, p. 11. 4. See Malalasekera, op. cit., I, p. 662; the Therīcāpā is mentioned in the
Therīgātha (see Nālanda edn., Khuddaka Nikāya, II, pp. 441–3), but
there the name of Upaka is conspicuously absent. 5. See supra, p. 29, n. 3. 6. See Malalasekera, op. cit., II, p. 14. 7. Ibid., I, p. 609. 8. Ibid., II, p. 123. 9. See Anguttara, III (trans.), p. 273.