354 THE INDIAN ANTIQUARY. [December, 1873. zealous about mere ceremonies. The cloisters and entrance to the enclosures round these colossal Jain statues are precisely like those in other temples, and there is a pith a for offerings in front of the statue. The dedication of a temple to a saint not a Tirthankara is remarkable. The Digambara Jains of Southern India differ, however, entire¬ ly from their fellows of the North, in doctrine, books, and customs. A. B. PAPERS ON SATRUS'JAYA AND THE JAINS. BY THE EDITOR. V.—Satruhjaya Hill. Like other sects, the Jainas have their Tirtha8 or holy places, which they visit for worship at stated periods, in vast pilgrim-bands called Sahgho8t numbering many thousands, from Gujarat, Marwad, Gangetic India, and elsewhere. They enumerate five great iirthas : —£atrnnjaya, Samet&ikharor Mount PtLrsvan&thain Bihar, ArbudaorAbu in Sirohi, G irn ar in Surashtra, and Chan, dragiriin the Himalayas. At these places we naturally expect the oldest Jaina remains, and, according to the Tapd Jaina Patdvali, Jaina temples were first built in the year 882 Virata, or Samvat 412, a.d. 355. At G i r n a r we have probably their oldest existing remains, but none of them approach to this antiquity, and few anywhere date earlier than the eleventh or twelfth century of our era. £ a tr unjay a or Satrunji is a solitary mountain lying to the south of the town of Palitana, and rising to nearly 2000 feet above the sea-level. Its summit is covered with temples, and, from their extent and cele¬ brity, they are perhaps second in interest to none elsewhere. Like other tirthas it has its mdhdtmya or legend ; and the Satrunjaya Mdhdtmya, in glorification of the hill as a place of pilgrimage, claims to be the oldest Jaina document we possess,—dating as far back ad a.d. 420 according to some, and according to Weber, in a.d. 598.* It professes to have been com¬ posed by Dhanesvara at Valabhi, by command of Siladitya, king of S n r a s h- t r a. But the author would have ns believe his authorities were of the remotest antiquity, for he begins by telling that, at the request of Kishabhanatha, Pundarika, the a * Of coarse this date most depend on that of MahiU vira’s death, to which it professes to be 947 years sub¬ sequent, or 477 after the era of Vikram&rka. leader of this gana ([Oanddhipa) had long ago composed a mdhdtmya of ^atruSjaya in 100,00O pada; and that Sudharmft, the leader of Vira’s gana, by his master’s direction, made an abstract of it in 24,000 verses, from which Dhanesvara, “ the humiliator of the Bud¬ dhists, composed the present work.” f It is a long panegyric in Sanskrit verse, extending to about 8700 lines, put into the mouth of Mahavira, the last Tirthankara, who, on his visiting ^atrnnjaya, is requested by Indra to relate the legend of the mountain sacred toAdinatha.J Accordingly he proceeds not only to tell the strictly Jaina legends of the hill, but interweaves with them long episodes of Brahmanic mythology, such as the history of Rama, the war of the Kurus and P a n - d a v a s, and stories of K r i s h n a, altering them as he pleases. According to the Mdhdtmya, the hill boasts. no less than a hundred and eight names, and as many distinot sikharas or peaks, uniting it with the si&teT-tirthas of A b u and G i r n a r,— many of them very low, if not quite invisible. Of its names, the following is a selection :— Satrunjay a—the etymology of which i s thus given in the Mdhdtmya: “ Formerly there lived in C hand rap nr a a cruel king named Kandu. Aroused by a voice from heaven, he went into the forest, and was there overcome by the cow S u r a b h i, bound by a Y a k s h a, and exposed in a cave in the forest. Thereby he attained the knowledge of his guilt. His gotradevi or family goddess, A m b i k a, then appeared to him and advised him to go on pilgrimage to Satrunjaya; and on tho way he met a Mahamuni, who taught him fully. Through t Weber, Qatr. Mdhdt, p. 15. X There ia also a prose version of it.
