influence and of small numbers Aśoka would hardly have known of them,
or at least would not have singled them out from the other numerous
nameless sects of which he often speaks. It may also be supposed that they
were specially numerous in their old home, as Aśoka's capital
Pâṭaliputra lay in this land. Whether they spread far over these
boundaries, cannot be ascertained.
On the other hand we possess two documents from the middle of the next
century which prove that they advanced into south-eastern India as far as
Kaliṅga. These are the inscriptions at Khaṇḍagiri in Orissa, of
the great King Khâravela and his first wife, who governed the east coast
of India from the year 152 to 165 of the Maurya era that is, in the first
half of second century B.C.
The larger inscription, unfortunately very much disfigured, contains an
account of the life of Khâravela from his childhood till the thirteenth
year of his reign. It begins with an appeal to the Arhat and Siddha, which
corresponds to the beginning of the five-fold form of homage still used
among the Jainas, and mentions the building of temples in honour of the
Arhat as well as an image of the first Jina, which was taken away by a
hostile king. The second and smaller inscription asserts that Khâravela's
wife caused a cave to be prepared for the ascetics of Kalinga, "who
believed on the Arhat." [Footnote: The meaning of these inscriptions,
which were formerly believed to be Buddhist, was first made clear by Dr.
Bhangvânlâl's Indrâji's careful discussion in the _Actes du Vlième
Congrès Internat. des Orientalistes_ Sect. Ary. pp. 135-159. H; first
recognised the true names of the King Khâravela and his predecessors and
shewed that Khâravela and his wife were patrons of the Jainas. We have to
thank him for the information that the inscription contains a date in the
Maurya Era. I have thoroughly discussed his excellent article in the
_Oesterreichischen Monatsschrift_, Bd. X, S. 231 ff. and have there
given my reasons for differing from him on an important point, namely, the
date of the beginning of the Maurya Era, which, according to his view
begins with the conquest of Kaliṅga by Aśoka about 255 B. C. Even
yet I find it impossible to accept that the expression, "in the hundred
and sixty fifth year of the era of the Maurya Kings", can mean anything
else than that 164 years have passed between the thirteenth year of the
rule of Khâravela and the anointing of the first Maurya King Chandrugupta.
Unfortunately it is impossible to fix the year of the latter occurrence,
or to say more than that it took place between the years 322 and 312 B.C.
The date given in Khâravela's inscription cannot therefore be more closely
fixed than that it lies between 156 and 147 B.C. I now add to my former
remarks—that appeals to the Arhat and Siddha appear also in Jaina
inscriptions from Mathurâ and may be taken as a certain mark of the sect.
Thus it is worthy of note that even in Hiuen Tsiang's time, (Beal,
_Si-yu-ki_, Vol.
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