The Cambridge History of India, Vol. I: Ancient India v1.c18.54

v1.c18.54

As we have seen, in about 300 B.C. the division of the Jain church into the two great sects of the Çvetāmbaras and Digambaras had probably already begun. The final separation between the two communities is, no doubt, reported not to have taken place before 79 or 82 a.d.; but the list of teachers and schools in the Kalpasūtra and the numerous inscriptions from Mathurā, which date mostly from the time of the later Kushāṇa kings, i.e. after 78 a.d., afford sufficient proof that the Çvetāmbara community was not only established but had become subdivided into smaller sects at an earlier period. This is especially clear from the frequent mention of nuns in the Mathurā inscriptions; for it is only the Çvetāmbaras who give women admission into the order. Everything tends to show that the Jains were probably already at this time (300 b.c.) gradually losing their position in the kingdom of Magadha, and that they had begun their migration towards the Western part of India, where they settled, and where they have retained their settlements to the present day. Attention has already been called to the fact that the later Jain authors mention Ujjain as a place where their religion had already gained a strong foothold in the age of Açoka and his immediate successors. Another locality in which the Jains seem to have been firmly established, from the middle of the second century b.c. onwards, was Mathurā in the old kingdom of the Çūrasenas, known at an earlier date, e.g. by Megasthenes (300 b.c.), as the centre of Kṛishṇa-worship. The numerous inscriptions, excavated in this city by General Cunningham and Dr Führer, and deciphered by Professor Bühler, tell us about a wide-spread and firmly established Jain community, strongly supported by pious lay devotees, and very zealous in the consecration and worship of images and shrines dedicated to Mahāvīra and his predecessors. An inscription, probably dated from 157 a.d. (= 79 Çaka), mentions the Vodva tope as ‘built by the gods,’ which, as Bühler rightly remarks, proves that it in the second century a.d. must have been of considerable age as everything concerning its origin had been already forgotten.