Life in Ancient India as Depicted in the Jain Canons, with Commentaries: An Administrative, Economic, Social and Geographical Survey c20.s3.60

c20.s3.60

A Jain tradition related in the Rājavalikathe observes that Candragupta was a Jain and that, when a great famine occurred, he abdicated in favour of his son, Simhasena, and repaired to Mysore where he died. Two inscriptions on the north bank of the Kāverī near Seringapatam of about 900 A.D., describe the summit of the Kalbappu Hill, i.e. Candragiri as marked by the foot-prints of Bhadrabāhu and Candragupta Muni-pati (Rice, Mysore and Coorg from the inscriptions, pp. 3-4).³⁷ However, it should be noted that the earliest literary form of this tradition is found in the Bṛhatkathāko’a (131) by Hariṣeṇa, dating from about A.D. 931, according to which Bhadrabāhu had the king Candragupta as his disciple.