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 Kharavela'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 Mathura 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. II, p. 205) Kalinga was one of the chief seats of
the Jainas.]
From a somewhat later period, as the characters show, from the first
century B.C. comes a dedicatory inscription which has been found far to
the west of the original home of the Jainas, in Mathura on the Jamna. It
tells of the erection of a small temple in honour of the Arhat Vardhamana,
also of the dedication of seats for the teachers, a cistern, and a stone
table. The little temple, it says, stood beside the temple of the guild of
tradesmen, and this remark proves, that Mathura, which, according to the
tradition of the Jainas, was one of the chief scats of their religion,
possessed a community of Jainas even before the time of this inscription.
[Footnote: This inscription also was first made known by Dr Bhagwanlal
Indiaji, _loc. cit_. p. 143.]
A large member of dedicatory inscriptions have come to light, which are
dated from the year 5 to 98 of the era of the Indo-Skythian kings,
Kanishka, Huvishka, and Vasudeva (Bazodeo) and therefore belong at latest
to the end of the first and to the second century A.
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