This was also the beginning of Karnataka’s tryst with Jainism. The impending drought is said to have prompted Bhadrabahu to move to what is present-day Karnataka with some of his disciples, including Chandragupta, who had given up his throne, embraced Jainism and became an ascetic. In Digambar tradition, he is said to have been the last Sruta Kevali (an ascetic who has complete knowledge of the Jain scriptures). The famine had been predicted by Acharya Bhadrabahu, a noted Jain monk who is said to have written many of Jainism’s sacred texts like the Niryuktis, Samhitas and Kalpa Sutra. – It all started with the prediction of a 12-year drought in the Mauryan Empire during Chandragupta’s time. ![]() What made the emperor go there, and why is this pocket of Karnataka a great centre of Jainism, even today, more than 2,200 years later? ![]() While we all know that Emperor Ashoka renounced the sword to adopt Buddhism, legend tells us that the subcontinent’s first empire builder, the great Chandragupta Maurya, gave it all up and spent his last years as a Jain ascetic on a hill in Karnataka, hundreds of kilometres from his home.
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