56. Jaina In Bṛhatkōnkaṇ 21 Jan 18b.pdf (640.52 kB)
Jaina In Bṛhatkōnkaṇ
journal contribution
posted on 2018-01-24, 11:01 authored by TENSING CARLOS RODRIGUESTENSING CARLOS RODRIGUESWe said last time that Konkani identity draws
from its kshatriya (jaina) and the brāmhaṇa past, along with its vaḍukar
origin. The task before us is to trace the journey of this jaina element all the way from Magadha
to Konkan. Perhaps the Vengi country,
spread over what are today the Godavari and Krishna districts of Andhra
Pradesh, played a great role in this journey. Vengi was a great meeting place of roads according to
Jouveau-Dubreuil; here converged the roads to Kalinga (Orissa), Drāviḍa
(Tamilnadu), Karnātic (Karnataka), Mahārāshtra (Maharashtra) and Kosalā (spread over parts of Madhya
Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh and Bihar). [Subramanian, 1932 : Buddhist Remains In Andhra, v] The jaina people, and with them the Jaina and Buddhist religions in the
later millennia, travelled from Magadha
to Vengi, and thence to the rest of
Deccan and Bṛhatkōnkaṇ. The path
would obviously be Magadha –Kalinga – Āndhra - Konkan; but it
could also be, in addition, Magadha –Kosalā– Āndhra - Konkan. As we
have said earlier, Vindhya were sufficiently porous to let an abundant exchange
of goods, people and culture between the Indo-Gangetic Plain and the southern
peninsula. But through the first route it seems to have been a flood.
[Sudhakar, 2013 : Emergence Of Vengi
Region As A Seat Of Power, Journal of Business Management & Social
Sciences Research, vol. 2, no. 11, 39] Could there have been a third route :
Out of Rajasthan and Gujarat ? Looks inconsistent with our definition of the jaina as the kshatriya from Magadha. But let us not rule out that possibility,
however inconsistent it may seem with our hypothesis. What if our hypothesis is
wrong ab initio ? What if the jaina
inhabited the entire Indo-Gangetic plain, and not just the eastern extremity of
it ?