Indian Epigraphy: A Guide to the Study of Inscriptions in Sanskrit, Prakrit, and the Other Indo-Aryan Languages c12.s3.t2.2

c12.s3.t2.2

Inscriptions provide abundant details on the history of Jaina sectarian and monastic history and organization, in the form of the names, lineages, and positions of many Jaina clerics (cf. IC I.170). This data may be profitably used as a corroborative and supplementary source to information provided in the canonical literature. Works addressing Jaina sectarian history that make extensive use of inscriptional information include Shantaram Bhalchandra Deo's *History of Jaina Monachism from Inscriptions and Literature* (especially Part IV, "Jaina Monachism from Epigraphs") and Muni Uttam Kamal Jain's *Jaina Sects and Schools*. As examples of particular epigraphic documents with significant bearing on sectarian history, we may cite an inscription from Pattana (EI 1, 1892, 319–24) which provides a list of twenty-four heads of the Kharatara-gaccha and describes the patronage of that community by the Mughal emperor Akbar, and an old manuscript copy of a lost inscription from Śatruñjaya recording the resolutions of a council of Śvetāmbara monks in A.D. 1242.⁴⁷