Age of the Nandas and Mauryas c12.s9.15

c12.s9.15

The tradition as embodied in the late Jain books, has, however, a more connected history of the church to present. The Nirgrantha community was confined in the 4th century B. C. to Magadha and the heads of the church were in chronological order Sayambhava, Yaśobhadra, Sambhūtivijaya and Bhadrabāhu. Bhadrabāhu was a contemporary of Chandragupta Maurya and had converted the latter to the Nirgrantha religion. While Bhadrabāhu was the head of the church, a terrible famine broke out in Magadha and it became difficult for the monks to get alms. Bhadrabāhu then decided to leave the country with a part of the community. Accordingly Sthūlabhadra who was the son of Śakaḍāla, the minister of the Nanda king, was appointed head of the Magadhan community. Bhadrabāhu took a part of the community with him to the South where they settled down at Śravaṇa Beḷgoḷa in Mysore. It is further said that Chandragupta also abdicated the throne at this time and followed his teacher to Śravaṇa Beḷgoḷa where he died of voluntary starvation, as prescribed by the Nirgrantha religion. Sthūlabhadra for fear that the ancient traditions might be lost convoked a council of the monks at Pāṭaliputra in which the sacred literature consisting of the 11 Aṅgas and 14 Pūrvas was recited and fixed. Bhadrabāhu returned to Magadha after twelve years, when the famine had passed away, with a section of his followers. He found that the sacred texts collected in the Council of Pāṭaliputra did not contain the authentic traditions of the church and so he turned them down as spurious. The Magadhan monks had in the meantime begun to put on clothes and this practice was also declared by him as contrary to the original teachings of Mahāvīra. This denunciation however did not lead to an immediate schism in the church. The successor of Sthūlabhadra in the Magadhan church was Mahāgiri. He remained in power till the end of the Maurya period. It was in his time that Samprati, the grandson and successor of Aśoka, became a convert to the Nirgrantha faith and tried to imitate his grandfather in the matter of the propagation of the faith which he professed.