by J.F. Fleet, Bo.C.S., M.R.A.S., C.I.E.
The Indian Antiquary
May, 1892
Medieval stone relief at Digambara pilgrimage site Shravanabelagola, Karnataka. It has been interpreted as Bhadrabahu and Chandragupta Maurya, but some disagree....
[Chandragupta's] main biographical sources in chronological order are: ... 7th to 10th century Jain inscriptions at Shravanabelgola...
7th-century Bhadrabahu inscription at Shravanabelagola (Sanskrit, Purvahale Kannada script). This is the oldest inscription at the site, and it mentions Bhadrabahu and Prabhacandra. Lewis Rice and Digambara Jains interpret Prabhacandra to be Chandragupta Maurya, while others such as J F Fleet, V. R. Ramachandra Dikshitar, and Svetambara Jains state this interpretation is wrong....
The earliest mention of Chandragupta's ritual death is found in Harisena's Brhatkathakosa, a Sanskrit text of stories about Digambara Jains. The Brhatkathakosa describes the legend of Bhadrabahu and mentions Chandragupta in its 131st story. However, the story makes no mention of the Maurya empire, and mentions that his disciple Chandragupta lived in and migrated from Ujjain – a kingdom (northwest Madhya Pradesh) about a thousand kilometers west of the Magadha and Patliputra (central Bihar). This has led to the proposal that Harisena's Chandragupta may be a later era, different person....
1,300 years Old Shravanabelagola relief shows death of Chandragupta after taking the vow of Sallekhana. Some consider it about the legend of his [???] arrival with Bhadrabahu....
A statue depicting Chandrgupta Maurya (right) with his spiritual mentor Acharya Bhadrabahu at Shravanabelagola....
The circumstances and year of Chandragupta's death are unclear and disputed. According to Digambara Jain accounts that, Bhadrabahu forecasted a 12-year famine because of all the killing and violence during the conquests by Chandragupta Maurya. He led a group of Jain monks to south India, where Chandragupta Maurya joined him as a monk after abdicated his kingdom to his son Bindusara. Together, states a Digambara legend, Chandragupta and Bhadrabahu moved to Shravanabelagola, in present-day south Karnataka. These Jain accounts appeared in texts such as Brihakathā kośa (931 CE) of Harishena, Bhadrabāhu charita (1450 CE) of Ratnanandi, Munivaṃsa bhyudaya (1680 CE) and Rajavali kathe. Chandragupta lived as an ascetic at Shravanabelagola for several years before fasting to death as per the Jain practice of sallekhana, according to the Digambara legend....
Regarding the inscriptions describing the relation of Bhadrabahu and Chandragupta Maurya, Radha Kumud Mookerji writes,The oldest inscription of about 600 AD associated "the pair (yugma), Bhadrabahu along with Chandragupta Muni." Two inscriptions of about 900 AD on the Kaveri near Seringapatam describe the summit of a hill called Chandragiri as marked by the footprints of Bhadrabahu and Chandragupta munipati. A Shravanabelagola inscription of 1129 mentions Bhadrabahu "Shrutakevali", and Chandragupta who acquired such merit that he was worshipped by the forest deities. Another inscription of 1163 similarly couples and describes them. A third inscription of the year 1432 speaks of Yatindra Bhadrabahu, and his disciple Chandragupta, the fame of whose penance spread into other words.
Along with texts, several Digambara Jain inscriptions dating from the 7th–15th century refer to Bhadrabahu and a Prabhacandra. Later Digambara tradition identified the Prabhacandra as Chandragupta, and some modern era scholars have accepted this Digambara tradition while others have not. Several of the late Digambara inscriptions and texts in Karnataka state the journey started from Ujjain and not Pataliputra (as stated in some Digambara texts)....
Scholar of Jain studies and Sanskrit Paul Dundas says the Svetambara tradition of Jainism disputes the ancient Digambara legends. According to a 5th-century text of the Svetambara Jains, the Digambara sect of Jainism was founded 609 years after Mahavira's death, or in 1st-century CE. Digambaras wrote their own versions and legends after the 5th-century, with their first expanded Digambara version of sectarian split within Jainism appearing in the 10th-century. The Svetambaras texts describe Bhadrabahu was based near Nepalese foothills of the Himalayas in 3rd-century BCE, who neither moved nor travelled with Chandragupta Maurya to the south; rather, he died near Pataliputra, according to the Svetambara Jains....
According to V. R. Ramachandra Dikshitar – an Indologist and historian, several of the Digambara legends mention Prabhacandra, who had been misidentified as Chandragupta Maurya particularly after the original publication on Shravanabelagola epigraphy by B. Lewis Rice. The earliest and most important inscriptions mention Prabhacandra, which Rice presumed may have been the "clerical name assumed by Chadragupta Maurya" after he renounced and moved with Bhadrabahu from Pataliputra. Dikshitar stated there is no evidence to support this and Prabhacandra was an important Jain monk scholar who migrated centuries after Chandragupta Maurya's death. Other scholars have taken Rice's deduction of Chandragupta Maurya retiring and dying in Shravanabelagola as the working hypothesis, since no alternate historical information or evidence is available about Chandragupta's final years and death.
The Footprints of Chandragupta Maurya on Chandragiri Hill, where Chandragupta (the unifier of India and founder of the Maurya Dynasty) performed Sallekhana.
-- Chandragupta Maurya, by Wikipedia
In the first fifteen pages of the Introduction to his Inscriptions at Sravana-Belgola (published in 1889), Mr. Rice has arrived at the conclusions, that the settlement of the Jains at that place was brought about by the last of the Sruta-Kevalins, Bhadrabahu, and that this person died there, tended in his last moments by the Maurya king Chandragupta, — the Sandrokottos of the Greek historians, — the grandfather of Asoka. These conclusions, if they could be accepted as correct, would possess considerable interest. And it is worth while, therefore, to examine the grounds upon which they are based.
It is clear that there are local traditions, of some antiquity, connecting the names Bhadrabahu and Chandragupta with Sravana-Belgola. Thus: — Of the two hills at Sravana-Bolgola, the smaller one, Chandragiri, is said to derive its appellation from the fact that Chandragupta was the name of the first of the saints who lived and performed penance there (Introd. p. 1). On this hill there is a cave which is known as the cave of Bhadrabahusvamin; and also a shrine which is called the Chandragupta-basti (ibid. p. 2, and map). Two inscriptions, said to be of the ninth century, found near the Gautama-kshetra of the river Kaveri at Seriugapatam, speak of the hill at Sravana-Belgola as having its summit marked by the impress of the feet of Bhadrabahu and the Munipati Chandragupta (ibid. p. 2, note 6). At Sravana-Belgola itself, inscription No. 17, of about the seventh century A.D., mentions “the pair Bhadrabahu, together with the Munindra Chandragupta.” And inscription No. 71, of considerably later date, refers to worship being done to the foot-prints of Bhadrabahu.
So far, we stand on safe ground, in respect of the names of a Bhadrabahu and a Chandragupta; provided that we only bear in mind that, as yet, we have nothing to enable us to identify any particular Bhadrabahu and any particular Chandragupta.
We turn next to inscriptions at Sravana-Belgola, which undoubtedly mention Bhadrabahu, the last of the Sruta-Kevalins. No. 40, of A.D. 1163, speaks of “Gautama" [the first of the Kevalins], “in whose line arose ‘‘Bhadrabahu, the last among the Sruta-Kevalins; his disciple was Chandragupta, whose “glory was such that his own gana of Munis was worshipped by the forest-deities:"1 [It may be mentioned, in connection with an altogether different matter of some interest, that, in the further succession of disciples, this inscription mentions one whose original name was Devanandin; who was called Jinendra-Buddha, on account of his great learning; who was called Pujyapada, because his feet were worshipped by gods; and who composed the Jainundra-grammar.] and then, after a break, it takes up a line of succession, placed in the lineage (anvaya) of Chandragupta, beginning with the Munisvara Kondakunda,2 [I give this name as it stands in Mr. Rice’s texts, — Kondakunda, in Nos. 40, 54, and 105, and Kundakunda in No. 108. The variation in the vowel of the first syllable is not material. There is a question as to the proper consonants in the second and fourth syllables. For several variants of the name, see Dr. Hultzsch’s South-Indian Inscriptions, Vol. I. p. 158, note 2. In the pattavali of the Sarasvati-Gachchha, it appears as Kundakunda (ante, Vol. XX. pp. 351, 356).] whose original name was Padmanandin. No. 54, of A.D. 1128, again mentions Gautama, the 'Sruto-Kevalins, Bhadrabahu (apparently the 'Sruta-Kevalin of that name), and Chandragupta, “who, by being his disciple, acquired such merit as to be served for a long time by the forest-deities;” and then, like the preceding, after a break, it takes up the succession beginning with Kondakunda. No, 105, of A.D, 1398, dealing similarly with the succession from Kondakunda, enumerates, before him, a number of teachers, in respect of whom, for present purposes, it is only necessary to say that the Kevalin Gautama, and five Sruta-Kevalins, ending with Bhadrabahu, are mentioned, but the name of Chandragupta does not occur at all. And No. 108, of A D. 1433, mentions Gautama; in his line, the Yatindra Bhadrabahu, the last of the 'Sruta-Kevalins; his disciple, Chandragupta; and, in the line of the latter, the Munindra Kundakunda, whose succession is then continued, as in the other records.
These inscriptions undoubtedly mention Bhadrabahu, the last of the Sruta-Kevalins, and allot to him a disciple named Chandragupta. And all that we have to note here, is, that, except through the connected mention of a Chandragupta, they afford no grounds for identifying him with the Bhadrabahu of the inscriptions quoted in the last paragraph but two above; that they furnish no reasons for asserting that the Sruta-Kevalin Bhadrabahu ever visited Sravana-Belgola, or even came to Southern India at all; and that they give no indications of Chandragupta having been anything but an ordinary Jain teacher.
And now we come to the actual reasons that led Mr. Rice to assert the alleged facts which, in the interests of plain and reliable history, it is desirable either to substantiate or to disprove. They are to be found, partly in a compendium of Jain history called the Rajavalikathe, and partly in Mr. Rice’s rendering of another inscription at Sravana-Belgola, No. I in his book.
The essence of what the Rajavalikathe tells us is this (loc. cit. pp. 3-6): — "The Bhadrabahu who came to be the last of the Sruta-Kevalins, was a Brahman’s son, and was born at Kotikapura in Pundravardhana. He interpreted sixteen dreams of Chandragupta, the king of Pataliputra; the last of which indicated twelve years of dearth and famine. On the commencement of the famine, Chandragupta abdicated in favour of his son Simhasena, and, taking initiation in the Jain faith, joined himself to Bhadrabahu. Bhadrabahu, having collected a body of twelve thousand disciples, migrated to the south, and came to a hill in the Karnataka country. There he perceived that his end was approaching; and so, giving upadesa to Visakhcharya, he committed all the disciples to his care, and sent them on to the Chola and Pandya countries. He himself remained on the hill, and died in a cave there, tended only by Chandragupta, who performed the funeral rites, and abode there, worshipping the foot-prints of the deceased saint. After a time, Simhasena’s son, Bhaskara, came to the place, and did obeisance to Chandragupta, and built the city of Belgola near the hill. And eventually, Chandragupta himself died there.”
In connection with this account, — the value of which most people will be able to appreciate for themselves, — it is sufficient to point out two things. One is, that, whatever be the sources on which it is based, this Jain compendium is a composition of the present century (loc. cit. p. 3). And the other is that, by a further extract from the same work, we learn (ibid, p. 9) that the Chandragupta in question was not the well-known grandfather of Asoka, — the Sandrokottos of the Greeks, — at all, but a son, otherwise quite unknown, of Asoka’s son Kunala. Mr. Rice himself noticed this little difficulty, and got round it by suggesting (ibid. p. 10) that ‘the introduction of two Chandraguptas seems to be due to some confusion in the traditions, and is an unnecessary variation, perhaps intended to conceal the defection of Asoka (from Jainism to the Buddhist faith).' But, by such a process as this, — accepting as reliable an account that is perfectly valueless for historical purposes, and then directly perverting its statement, on a point of leading importance, by deliberately substituting a man’s grandfather in the place of his grandson, — almost anything whatever in the way of imaginary history might be evolved.
It is unnecessary to follow Mr. Rice through the process by which, using what seems to be an actual fact, viz. that Bhadrabahu, the last of the Sruta-Kevalins, was a contemporary of the great Chandragupta, he arrived (loc. cit. pp. 12, 14) at about B.C. 297 for the date of the events recorded, on his interpretation, in the inscription that still remains to be considered or through the steps by which he established a connection of the real Chandragupta with Southern India through the Early Guptas, the Mauryas of the Konkan, and the Gatta chieftains of the Kanareso country (ibid. pp. 10-14). We will turn now to the inscription itself.
The real purport of the inscription, No. 1 in the Sravana-Belgola volume, is as follows: — After the time when (the Jain Tirthamkara) Mahavira attained parinirvana, there was a certain Bhadrabahusvamin, who belonged to a lineage that had been made illustrious by a succession of great saints who came in continuous order from the venerable Paramarshi Gautama, and his disciple Loharya, and Jambu, Vishnudeva, Aparajita, Govardhana, Bhadrabahu, Visakha, Prosthhila, Krittikarya,3 [Mr. Rice gives “Kshatriksrya." I do not overlook the fact that the name occurs as “Kshatriya" in No. 165 in Mr. Rice’s book, and in the extract from the Maghanandi-Sravakachara given ante, Vol. XII. p 22, and as “Khattiya,” explained by “Kshatriya,” in the pattavali of the Sarasvati-Gachchha (ante, Vol, XX. p. 348). But Mr. Rice’s lithograph distinctly has the name that I give. — Since writing these remarks, I have seen impressions of the inscription, which I owe to the kindness of Dr. Hultzsch. They shew that the name really is Krittikarya.] Jayanaman, Siddhartha, Dhritishena, Buddhila, and other Gurus. At Ujjayini, the Bhadrabahusvamin, thus introduced, mastered the science of prognostication, became a knower of the past, the present, and the future, and announced a period of distress that would last for twelve years; and the entire sangha set out from the north and migrated to the south, and, by the directions of the saint, came to a country containing many hundreds of villages, and rich in people, wealth, gold, grain, cows, buffaloes, and goats. Then, on the mountain Katavapra4 [The original says, “on this mountain named Katavapra”; i.e. on the hill on which the inscription is engraved; i.e. on Chandragiri itself. ] the Acharya Prabhachandra, perceiving that the end of his life was very near, and being much afraid of journeying any farther, dismissed the whole samgha, with the exception of one unnamed disciple, and engaged in samnyasa until he died."
In interpreting this record, Mr. Rice made two important mistakes. (1) He took the Bhadrabahusvamin who announced the period of distress, to be identical with Bhadrabahu I, the Sruta-Kevalin, who is mentioned in his proper place between Govardhana and Visakha. But, according to the inscription itself, seven of the Dasa-Parvins, and after them a break of unspecified duration, intervened between the two Bhadrabahus, — in perfect accordance with the lists of Northern India. And (2), in consequence of a mislection in line 6, he translated the inscription as meaning that the Acharya who died at Katavapra, was Bhadrabahusvamin himself, i.e,, as the result of his identification, Bhadrabahu I., the Sruta-Kevalin, and that the disciple who tended him was Prabhachandra; to which he attached a note that Prabhachandra was explained to him as the clerical name assumed by Chandragupta.5 [See also Introd. pp 6, 7, where, however, he says only that, "according to No. 1,” i.e. the present inscription, Chandragupta “appears” to have taken the name of Prabhachandra on retiring from the world, in conformity with custom.] But all this is distinctly not the case; the reading, in line 6, is, — not acharyyah Prabhachandren=am=avanitala, “the Acharya, with6 [The passage was supposed to include the word ama, in the sense of saha, — The inscription was first brought to notice by Mr. Rice in 1871, in this Journal, Vol. III., p. 153 (see also Mysore Inscriptions, pp. lxxxvi., lxxxvii., 302); and the first extract from the Rajavalikatne was also given. But Mr. Rice did not then find the name Prabhachandra in the inscription. And in respect of the extract from the Rajavalikathe, he then wrote — “This is a strange story. How much of it may be accepted as historical is not easy to say.”] Prabhachandra also, [dismissed the sangha, and engaged in samnyasa till he died],” — but acharyyah Prabhachandro nam=avanitala, "the Acharya, namely Prabhachandra, [dismissed the samgha and engaged in samnyasa till he died].”
In short, so far from recording that the Sruta-Kevalin Bhadrabahu died at Sravana Belgola, tended by a disciple named Prabhachandra, who might be assumed to be king Chandragupta of Pataliputra, the inscription simply states that an Acharya named Prabhachandra died there, during or shortly after a migration of the Jain community to the south, which was caused by an announcement of famine made, at Ujjain, by a certain Bhadrabahusvamin who came after an interval of unspecified duration, — but plainly a long one, — after the Sruta-Kevalin Bhadrabahu, And thus the only possible substantial foundation for the fabric reared up by Mr. Rice ceases entirely to exist.
We may now proceed to examine the real historical bearings of this inscription. It is not dated. But the lithographic Plate which is given by Mr. Rice, shews that the engraving of it is to be allotted to approximately the seventh century A.D.: it may possibly be a trifle earlier; and equally, it may possibly be somewhat later.7 [While recognising, approximately, the period to which the characters really belong, Mr. Rice (loc. cit. p. 15) arrived at the conclusion that, “if this interesting inscription did not precede the Christian era, it unquestionably belongs to the earliest part of that era and is certainly not later than about 100 A.D." But there are no substantial grounds for this view, which depends chiefly upon Mr. Rice’s acceptance as genuine, of the spurious Western Ganga grants. Unfortunately, much of what would otherwise be valuable work by him, is always vitiated in the same way.] And, interpreting the record in the customary manner, viz. as referring to an event almost exactly synchronous with the engraving of it, we can only take it as commemorating the death of a Jain teacher named Prabhachandra, in or very near to the period A.D. 600 to 700. Who this Prabhachandra was, I am not at present able to say. But he cannot be Prabhachandra I. of the pattavali of the Sarasvati-Gachchha (ante, Vol. XX. p. 351), unless the chronological details of that record, — according to which Prabhachandra I., became pontiff in A.D. 396, — are open to very considerable rectification. And I should think that he must be a different person, for whose identification we have to look to southern records not as yet available.
As regards Bhadrabahusvamin, all that should have been of necessity plain at the time when Mr. Rice dealt finally with this inscription, is, that he is not the Sruta-Kevalin Bhadrabahu. Now that Dr. Hoernle has published the patttavali of the Sarasvati-Gachchha, he is easily capable of identification. He is undoubtedly Bhadrabahu II., the last but one of the Minor-Angins who is represented as becoming pontiff in B.C. 63 (ante, Vol. XX. pp. 349-51.)
The same pattavali enables us to locate properly the Chandragupta of the Sravana-Belgola traditions and inscriptions. Such of them as make him a disciple of the Sruta-Kevalin Bhadrabahu, are plainly mistaken. He is evidently Guptigupta, the disciple of Bhadrabahu II., — otherwise named Arhadbalin and Visakhacharya, — who, according to the same record, became pontiff in B.C. 31 (ante, Vol. XX. pp. 350, 351). And this brings us to a point in which the local traditions are possibly more correct than the northern records. The pattavali in question tells us that one of Guptigupta’s disciples, Maghanandin, established the Nandi-Samgha or Balatkara-Gana, as a division of the Mula-Samgha itself. Both names of the gana, as well as that of the Mula-Samgha, are of frequent occurrence, in connection with teachers belonging to it, in inscriptions in the Kanarese country; where, however, the gana is perhaps mentioned most often as the Balatkara-Gana. This appellation for it is attributed by Dr. Hoernle to Guptigupta’s name of Arhadbalin. A gana of his own is allotted to Chandragupta, i.e. to Guptigupta, by inscription No. 40 at Sravana-Belgola (see the words quoted from it, on page 156 above), which ultimately deals with the Desi-Gana as a division of the Nandi-Gana in the Mula-Samgha, placing it in the lineage (anvaya) of Kondakunda, just as the lineage of the latter is placed in the lineage of Chandragupta, i.e. of Guptigupta. And the fact that the Inscription with which we have been dealing, and others on the Chandragiri hill which similarly record the deaths of Jain ascetics, lie in such a position that they have to be read with the face directed towards the front of the so-called Chandragupba-basti, indicates plainly that some peculiar sanctity or reverence attached to the parson commemorated by that shrine. There can be little doubt that the ascetics in question belonged to the same sect with that person; that he was the traditional founder of the sect; and that the tradition at Sravana-Belgola was that the Balatkara-Gana was really founded by the Chandragupta of the inscriptions, i.e. by Guptigupta, the disciple of Bhadrabahu II.8 [In connection with a division of the Nandi-Samgha, “the body of saints of Guptigupta” is mentioned in the Kadab grant, which purports to be dated in Saka-Samvat 785 (ante, Vol. XII. p. 11). And inscription No. 105 in Mr. Rice’s book, dated Saka-Samvat 1820, speaks of Arhadbalin, apparently as establishing a four-fold division of the samgha.]
The migration to the south, whether it really started from Ujjain, or from elsewhere, may well be a historical fact.9 [It appears to be mentioned also in the Upasarga kevaligala-kathe; see ante, Vol. XII, p. 99, -- "the whole assemblage of the saints having come by the region of the south, and having arrived at the tomb of the venerable one, &c."] It may be open to argument, whether the inscription intends to imply that it was led by Bhadrabahu II. But at any rate this is not distinctly asserted. And I think that the contrary is indicated, (1) by the description of Bhadrabahu as ‘‘a knower of the past, the present, and the future (traikalya-darsin)," which rather points to his predicting a future period of distress, than to his simply announcing the commencement of immediately impending distress; and (2) by the statement that the rich land at which the samgha arrived was reached “by the directions of the saint (arshena = rishi-vachanena)," which points to instructions given at the time of predicting the distress, — or at any rate to advice given to people who were leaving him, — rather than to personal guidance. On the other hand, the inscription, whether correctly or not, does make the migration contemporaneous with Prabhachandra; for it says that, at the mountain Katavapra, he perceived that the end of his life was very near and became “much afraid of travelling any further (adhvanah su-chakitah)," and so dismissed the samgha and remained there till he died. If, then, the record does mean to imply that Bhadrabahu II. led the migration, or even that it took place in his time, it is wrong, either in that respect, or in placing the death of Prabhachandra during the migration; because of the intervention of several centuries at least10 [I assume that the pattavali of the Sarasvati-Gachchha is at least approximately correct in respect of the date which it gives for Bhadrabahu II.] between the period of Bhadrabahu II, and the death of Prabhachandra as determined, with close approximation, by the palaeography of the record.