Life in Ancient India as Depicted in the Jain Canons, with Commentaries: An Administrative, Economic, Social and Geographical Survey c5.s10.9

c5.s10.9

The *Brhatkalpa Sūtra* (1 50) states that the monks and nuns may wander towards the east as far as Anga-Magadha, towards the south as far as Kosambī, towards the west as far as Thūnā, towards the north as far as Kunālā. This sermon is said to have been given by Mahāvīra to his disciples while he sojourned at the Subhūmibhāga garden at Sāketa, which apparently goes back to an old time when Jainism was in its infancy and existed only in a very limited part of India round about the country of Magadha and a part of United Provinces. As a matter of fact, as it has been stated, it was Samprati, who encouraged the propagation of Jainism throughout the length and breadth of the country after he had come to power. Further, the first section of the *Brhatkalpa Sūtra* which prescribes the eating of the broken or unbroken, raw and ripe palm-fruit (*tāla*) or the fibres (*palamba*) for the Jain monks and nuns, leads us to the olden days of terrible famine which visited Magadha and is said to have lasted for a long time, when Bhadrabāhu migrated to Nepala. These precepts indicate the hardest days through which the Jain monks and nuns had to pass and how they had to live on raw palm-fruits and fibres of the trees for their subsistence. Thus in the Jain Canon there are various traditions, historical or semi-historical presenting the political, administrative, social, economic and geographical conditions, throwing an immense light on ancient history and culture of India, which prove the antiquity of the Canons.