Floods, Taxes, and a Stone Cow: A Jain Apocalyptic Account of the Gupta Period

The Jains are not readily identifiable as a prominent component of society during the Gupta Empire, with the archaeological record of their activities being relatively meagre. This has led to the hypothesis that this community may have migrated from the Gupta realms to the west and south of the subcontinent as a result of antipathy towards the non-orthodox articulated in brahmanical/Vaiṣṇava texts such as the Viṣṇupurāṇa. This paper identifies in the Śvetāmbara text, the Titthogālī, a possible apocalyptic interpretation of this period in which the Jains are described as being subjected to oppression by King Caturmukha and a goddess in the form of a stone cow. The Titthogālī also records the disastrous impact of the flooding of the city of Pāṭaliputra.

The notion that the two hundred and thirty or so years of the Gupta Empire represent early India's most significant 'golden age', a time of artistic achievement, intellectual consolidation, and benign religious tolerance, remains resilient in many quarters. However, informed scholarship has in recent years been more sceptical about aspects of this assessment of the Gupta period. 1 Attention has been drawn to the facts that the evidence emanating from those who would have presided over a golden age of this sort, that is to say inscriptions issued directly by Gupta emperors, is remarkably limited, and also that for all the claims made for the Gupta period as a watershed for the appearance of foundational works of Sanskrit śāstra, it is difficult to establish a precise chronological 'fit' for many texts which fall into this category. 2 Furthermore, it is hardly novel to observe that, rather than bearing witness to an even-handed dispensation towards brahman/Hindu and non-Vedic/Buddhist and Jain communities alike, textual evidence for this historical moment as embodied in the early purāṇas, particularly the Viṣṇupurāṇa, an undoubtedly Gupta period text, whether early or late, 3 evinces a strong antipathy towards pāṣaṇḍa, that is to say non-orthodox behaviour. 4 This antipathy is most markedly encoded in the form of a myth of corruption and decline exemplified by the deluding figure of Māyāmoha, who assumes in succession the guise of the two most deviant renunciant types for brahmans, a naked bald-headed Jain and a red-robed Buddhist, in order to undermine the trust of the demons in orthodox Vedic practice. 5 The purāṇic narrative of the evils wrought by nonorthodox renunciant communities amplifies an apocalyptic theme adumbrated in the Mahābhārata (the final version of which was most likely produced some time around the Gupta period) with reference to the conquest of barbarian outsiders and invaders by the brahman king Kalki(n) Viṣṇuyaśas, who subsequently restores social and ritual order. 6 Whether the Viṣṇupurāna was a vehicle for a conservative brahmanical agenda of renewal intended to be enacted by Vaiṣṇava Gupta emperors must remain a moot point. 7 The Buddhists, for their part, undoubtedly perceived a threat directed towards them during the Gupta period, and responded vigorously to the animus expressed in works like the Viṣṇupurāṇa with their own narratives. The Jains, however, seem to have been much more reticent in the face of this textual hostility, and their frustratingly ill-defined and intermittent presence throughout the duration of the Gupta Empire might well be regarded as reflected in the paucity of inscriptions deriving from this community and the sudden decrease in the number of sculptures at Mathurā, hitherto a major centre of Jain material culture. 8 The Jains in the Gupta period Attempts to provide a firm chronological location within the Gupta period for Jain authors and their writings must also be viewed as unsatisfactory. It has, for example, been suggested that the decision by Umāsvāti to produce the first Jain text in Sanskrit, the foundational Tattvārthādhigamasūtra which sums up the main tenets of the doctrine as established in the āgama, should be understood in the light of Gupta promotion of that language and the diminution of Prākrit in public discourse. 9 Yet, leaving aside the fact that any direct association of the Guptas with the patronage of Sanskrit is identifiable only in the most general terms, the date of Umāsvāti has still not been accurately determined. While there is a strong possibility that the Tattvārthādhigamasūtra was written during the Gupta period, an earlier dating to the Kuṣāna period remains perfectly plausible. 10 Nor is it any easier to assign a Gupta period dating to Jain historical events in the early Common Era. Śvetāmbara Jain tradition claims that three councils convened to consolidate the scriptural corpus took place in the fourth and fifth centuries CE. One of these has generally been dated to around the middle of the fourth century, and is recorded as taking place at Mathurā, so possibly falling within the geographical and chronological parameters of the early Gupta Empire. 11 Councils convened to stabilise scriptural canons generally took place in early India when social and political uncertainty, usually signalled as manifesting itself in the form of famine, threatened the integrity of scriptural traditions, or at any rate the memory of those monks who controlled oral transmission. 12 Certainly, such a situation prevailed, according to most traditional accounts, as the prelude to the council at Mathurā, and thus might indeed permit location of this event around the conclusion of the turbulent or uncertain process from which the Guptas most likely emerged. However, leaving aside the fact that we are told neither what texts were redacted at this council nor what mechanism was involved by which canonisation was implemented, no source before the beginning of the fourteenth century provides an actual date for the Mathurā conclave, while subsequent sources are at best highly tentative. 13 If this event of major significance for the Jain community did actually take place during the Gupta period, no solid evidence exists for it, and there is certainly no warranty for concluding that any form of state sponsorship was involved.
There does exist one stellar piece of evidence for a significant connection between a Gupta monarch and Jainism which encapsulates the ambiguous status of the Jain community in this period. This is the trio of inscriptions engraved on the pedestals of images of the Jinas, which were discovered in 1968 at Durjanpur, a village in the Vidiśā region not far from Udayagiri, a prominent dynastic site of the Gupta dynasty. 14 The inscription (here treating it as a composite) records the commissioning of three images of the Jinas Candraprabha (the seventh tīrthaṅkara of this time phase), Puṣpadanta (the ninth tīrthaṅkara of this time phase), and what would appear to be Padmaprabha (the sixth tīrthaṅkara of this time phase) 15 by Rāmagupta, styled mahārājādhirāja, who is described as having being instigated to do so (upadeśāt) by Celūkṣamaṇa, 16 the son of Golakyāntī, the pupil of the teacher Sarpasenakṣamaṇa, 17 and the grand-pupil of the teacher Candrakṣamaṇa, who is styled as 'one who uses his cupped hands for an alms bowl' (pāṇipātrika). 18 The inscription's reference to Rāmagupta would perhaps allow a dating to around the last quarter of the fourth century CE, but this imperial ruler is a shadowy and historically controversial figure, without any presence in the Gupta genealogical lists. Various scenarios have been devised to explain the inscription. It has been taken as evidence for the Jain monastic teacher 'Celū' being a significant presence at the Gupta court and exerting preceptorial, indeed initiatory, influence upon the monarch Rāmagupta. 19 At least one Indian scholar has suggested that Rāmagupta was a convert from Vaiṣṇavism to Jainism, thus supposedly compromising his capacity to engage in martial violence to defend the realm against the Sakas and so, at least according to a tradition enshrined in the drama the Devīcandragupta, bringing about his death at the hands of his brother who was to become Candragupta II. 20 Bakker provides a more nuanced interpretation of Rāmagupta's career, which would envisage him as possibly having been his father Samudragupta's viceroy in Vidiśā, with aspirations (quickly to be proved futile and apparently fatal) to control the entire empire. Rāmagupta's styling himself as mahārādhirāja in the Jain image inscription may then have represented a mode of grandiose, if ultimately no more than local, propaganda akin to his issuing of his own coinage, an assertion of self-perceived imperial status rather than a public proclamation of a genuine partiality for Jainism. 21 It is understandable that historians of the Gupta Empire have focused upon the possible political implications of this Vidiśā inscription. Viewed from the perspective of Jain history, however, what is striking is the fact that these inscribed images are the first hitherto identified iconic representations of the eighth and ninth Jinas Candraprabha and Puṣpadanta (who is also known as Suvidhi), and also of Padmaprabha, if the damaged third image does indeed depict the sixth Jina. 22 Their lack of lāñchanas, or distinguishing insignia, is typical of the early stage of Jain iconography. 23 The first textual appearances of these Jinas are in the Kalpasūtra, where their names are given along with those of the seventeen other intermediate Jinas between Ṛṣabha the first and Nemi the twenty-second, and in the quasi-encyclopaedic Samavāyāṅgasutra, where the first minimal descriptions of their biographies and physical appearances are to be found. 24 Both of these works can most likely be dated to some time around the fourth century CE. The significance of the Vidiśā inscription for the historian of Jainism may then not lie in the evidence it provides of patronage of this religion by an apparently short-lived Gupta ruler. Rather, it bears witness to the presence of Jainism at the fringes of the Gupta realm, and the introduction of devotional novelty in the locality of what Bakker has characterised as a 'frontier town' 25 at some distance from what had been for several centuries the Jain heartland of the Mathurā region.
But was the appearance of a Jain teacher, possibly a prominent one, at Vidiśā merely the natural result of the imperative of ascetic wandering, or did it betoken something slightly more sinister, such as an enforced relocation? Ohira has argued that the Gupta period was particularly unfortunate for Jainism, as evidenced by the decline in Jain sculptures at Mathurā with the advent of Gupta hegemony, and the strong Vaiṣṇavisation of what was regarded as Kṛṣṇa's birthplace at Mathurā. This led, Ohira suggests, to the Jains being driven to other parts of India from the north and the migration of the Jain business community to large trading centres such as Ujjayinī. By this argument the Malwa border-region may have provided a conduit for Jains leaving the Gupta realm. 26 Ohira's hypothesis makes a degree of sense of the conjunction of purāṇic vilification of the non-orthodox and the gradual repositioning of sections of the Jain community towards the west and the south of the subcontinent. Its weakness (apart from failing to consider the analogous case of the Buddhists at this time) is that it is greatly reliant on a gloomy interpretation of a Jain archaeological record which, while clearly attenuated, never completely disappeared from the Gupta Empire. Unfortunately, no textual evidence which might support the theory of a possible 'migration' of the Jain community in response to pressure from a supposedly less than accommodating Gupta regime has been identified thus far. In an attempt to expand the range of reference for locating the Jains in the Gupta period, I would now like to introduce a literary work which has been hitherto little acknowledged by both traditional and modern scholarship alike, the Titthogālī.

The Titthogālī and its prophecy
The Titthogālī (henceforth T) is a Śvetāmbara text which, in the Jaina Āgama Series version of 1984 edited by Puṇyavijaya and Bhojak, comprises 1261 Prākrit verses. 27 The title of this work has various spellings, 28 and its meaning is unclear, probably signifying 'The Decline of the Jain Tradition'. It belongs to the fluid 'mixed' (prakīṛnaka) category of canonical texts, but is not mentioned in all the available listings, 29 and it lacks any commentary, traditional or modern. Significantly, however, the T is specifically mentioned in the Vyavahārabhāṣya, usually attributed to Saṅghadāsagaṇin, as the authoritative source for details of scriptural texts which have disappeared. 30 While the dating of the Śvetāmbara bhāṣya texts is not totally secure, the consensus is that the Vyavahārabhāṣya was composed around the turn of the sixth and seventh centuries CE. The T in its current form may not be the exact equivalent of the work referred to in the Vyavahārabhāṣya, but it nonetheless seems justifiable to posit as a working hypothesis that the work dates from around the fifth or sixth centuries CE, which, if correct, would locate it within the latter stages of the Gupta Empire. 31 In terms of content, the T is a prophetic work in which Mahāvīra predicts the gradual demise throughout the descending time cycle of the Jain religion and the textual tradition which embodies it. 32 While Mahāvīra's powers of prediction had already been described in the Śvetāmbara scriptural canon, 33 the T is the first Jain text to be devoted in total to a prophetic vision of the destiny of the Jain tradition. After a description of the nature of time and the various Jinas and mythological figures who appear throughout the phases of the time cycle, the T prefaces its account of the dūsamā period (equivalent to the Hindu Kali Yuga) with a description of a series of disasters visited upon the Jain renunciant community (and by extension the laity, which is not otherwise regularly mentioned in the work) during the reign of a king, initially called Duṣṭabuddhi then Caturmukha (T verses 628-89), which I will suggest is an interpretation of Jainism's fortunes during the Gupta period. The following represents a translation, annotated where necessary or possible, of this section of the T, followed by some analytical comment. Occasionally I paraphrase or summarise the Prākrit; at points where the text is corrupt or difficult to understand, only an approximate rendering will be ventured. Bracketing and conjectures in the body of the Prākrit text are those of Puṇyavijaya and Bhojak.
The section is introduced thus (verses 620-27): 620. jaṃ rayaṇiṃ siddhigao arahā titthaṃkaro Mahāvīro / taṃ rayaṇiṃ Avaṃtīe abhisitto Pālao rāyā On the same night that the arhat tīrthaṃkara Mahāvīra attained deliverance Pālaka was consecrated as king of Avantī. 34 621-23: There will then be a succession of kings over a span of six hundred and five years and five months commencing with the Nanda dynasty and culminating with the Sakas. 624. Sagavaṃsassa ya terasa sayāiṃ tevīsaiṃ ca vāsāiṃ / hohī jammaṃ tassa u Kusumapure Duṭṭhabuddhissa The Saka dynasty will rule for thirteen centuries and twenty three years. Then Duṭṭhabuddhi ('Ill-minded') will be born in Pāṭaliputra. 625-27: These verses describe astrological and celestial phenomena. 628. taiyā bhuvaṇaṃ paḍanassa jammanagarīe Rāma-Kaṇhāṇaṃ / ghoraṃ jaṇakkhayakaraṃ paḍibohadiṇe ya Viṇhussa Then he will descend to earth on the day of Viṣṇu's awakening in the city where Rāma and Kṛṣṇa were borna terrible event (ghoraṃ) which will bring general destruction. 35 629. bahukoha-māṇa-māyā-lobhapasattassa tassa jammammi / saṃghaṃ puṇa hesehī gāvīrūveṇa ahiuttā(?tthā) On the birth of one who was much attached to anger, pride, deception, and greed (a goddess) attacking (?) in the form of a cow will harm the community (saṃgha) again. 36

631.
ettha kira majjhadese paviralamaṇuesu nāmadesesu / haya-gaya-go-mahisāṇaṃ kahiṃci kicchāhiṃ uvalaṃbho In this middle region, 40 it seems (kira), (and ?) in (other) well-known regions (?) 41 which will become depopulated, calamities will somehow (kahiṃci) overtake horses, oxen, cows, and bulls. 42 632. corā rāyakulabhayaṃ, gaṃdha-rasā jijjhihiṃti aṇusamayaṃ / dubbhikkham aṇāvuṭṭhī ya nāma pa(va?)liyaṃ pavajji (?jjī) (There will be) brigands and oppression from kings, odours and flavours will be continually disgusting (?). 43 There will be famine and drought and (a sect called) the Yāpanīyas will become (Jain) renunciants. 44 633. rātīṇaṃ ca viroho īībahulā ya jaṇavayā taiyā / jammami tassa ete niyaṃva(? yayaṃ) bhāvā muṇeyavvā Gifts (rāti) (to monks) will be stopped, the countryside will at that moment be full of calamities. On the birth of that one these conditions are to be regarded as usual (? Having heard this he will excavate the stūpas completely and then obtain the gold belonging to Nanda. 640. so atthapaḍitthaddho aṇṇanariṃde taṇaṃ via gaṇiṃto / aha savvato mahaṃtaṃ khaṇāvihī puravaraṃ savvaṃ Proud of his wealth, counting other kings as worth only a straw, he will then get the entire splendid city, great as it is, completely dug up. 641. nāmeṇa Loṇadevī gāvīrūveṇa nāma ahiutthā (?) / dharaṇiyalā ubbhūyā dīsīhi silāmayī gāvī (A goddess) called Loṇadevī will then appear in the shape of a cow; emerging from the ground she will manifest herself as a stone cow. 50 642. sā kira taiyā gāvīhoūṇaṃ rāyamaggam otiṇṇā / sāhujaṇaṃ hiṃḍaṃtaṃ pāḍehī sūsuyāyaṃtī It seems that (kira) after becoming a cow she will then descend to the royal highway and, bellowing (?), 51 will kill (pāḍehī) the monks (sāhujaṇaṃ) 52  Those who will consider the calamities brought about by the cow and the word of the excellent Jina (predicting them) will go to another country. However, many will not go.
647. GaṃgāSoṇuvasaggaṃ jiṇavaravayaṇaṃ ca je muṇehiṃti / gacchaṃti aṇṇadese, taha vi ya bahuyā na gacchaṃti Those who will consider the calamity to be brought about by the rivers Ganges and Śoṇa and the word of the excellent Jina (predicting this) will go to other countries. However, many will not go. 56 648. 'kiṃ amha palāeṇaṃ ? bhikkhassa kim icchiyāi labbhaṃte' evaṃ vijaṃpamāṇā taha vi ya bahuyā na gacchaṃti (They will say), 'What is the point of us fleeing? Can the desired quantity of alms be got (elsewhere)?' Saying this, many will not leave. 649-50: Summary: 'who can escape the results of actions performed in the past?' 651. aha dāṇi so nariṃdo Caummuho dummuho adhammamuho / pāsaṃḍe piṃḍeuṃ bhaṇihī 'savve karaṃ deha' Now that King Caturmukha, of evil demeanour and turned towards unrighteousness, will say, treating the non-orthodox communities as one (?), 57 'All of you pay a tax'. 58 652. ruddho ya samaṇasaṃgho acchīhiti, sesayā ya pāsaṃḍā / savve dāhiṃti karaṃ sahiraṇṇa-suvaṇṇayā jattha The community of Jain monks will be imprisoned, 59 while the remaining non-orthodox groups will all pay the tax, where they have money and gold.
654. vocchaṃti ya mayaharagā 'aṃhaṃ dāyavvayaṃ na kiṃcittha / jaṃ nāma tubbha lubbhā karehi taṃ dāyasī rāya' The senior monks will say: 'We should give nothing in this respect; you are making us give simply because you are greedy for taxes, oh king.' 655. roseṇa sūsayaṃto so kai vi dine taheva acchīhi / aha nagaradevayā taṃ appaṇiyā bhaṇṇihī 'rāyaṃ Roaring 63 with anger, he will stay in that same state (of rage) (taheva) for some (kai vi) days; then the tutelary goddess of the city herself (appaṇiyā) will say: 'Oh king,' 656. kiṃ tūrasi mariuṃ je nisaṃsa kiṃ bāhase samaṇasaṃghaṃ / savvaṃ te pajjattaṃ naṇu kaivāhaṃ paḍicchāmi' 'Why do you hurry to die, monster? Why do you oppress the community of Jain monks? I will simply wait a few days (until) you have resolved everything.' (?) 657. ullapaḍasāḍao so paḍio pāehiṃ samaṇasaṃghassa / 'kovo diṭṭho bhagavaṃ kuṇaha pasāyaṃ pasāemi' With clothes wet (with tears) he will fall at the feet of the community of Jain monks, saying: 'You have seen my anger, your reverences; now show me good will, I beg you.' 658. 'kim amha pasāeṇaṃ' taha vi ya bahuyā tahīm na icchaṃti / ghoraniraṃtaravāsaṃ aha vāsaṃ dāiṃ vāsihiti However, many did not wish to live there in an unceasingly grim fashion, saying: 'Why should we show goodwill to him?' Then he will exile them. (?) 64 659. divvaṃtarikkha-bhomā taiyā hohiṃti nagaranāsā ya / uppāyā u mahallā susamaṇa-samaṇīṇa pīḍakarā At that time there will be heavenly omens in the sky and destruction of cities. Great portents will torment the good monks and nuns. 660. 'saṃvaccharapāraṇae hohī asivaṃ' ti to tao niṃti / suttatthaṃ kuvvaṃtā aisayamādīhiṃ nāūṇaṃ So they will lead (the community) from there. 65 For they will act on the basis of understanding through the prodigies (they saw) the meaning of the scriptures as (foretelling) that there will be a calamity (asivaṃ). 66 661. gaṃtuṃ pi na cāeṃti keī uvagaraṇavasahipaḍibaddhā / keī sāvaganissā, keī puṇa jaṃbhavissā u (But) some were not able to go because they were attached to possessions and dwellings, some were dependent on particular laymen, 67 while some were fatalists (jaṃbhavissā). 68 662. taṃ dāṇi samaṇubaddhaṃ satarasarātiṃdiyāhiṃ vāsihiti / Gaṃgā-Soṇāpasaro uvvattai teṇa vegeṇaṃ (Paraphrase:) It will then rain as prophesied by the omniscient ones and the current of the Ganges and Śoṇa will quickly rise. 69 663. Gaṃgāe vegeṇa ya Soṇassa ya duddhareṇa soteṇaṃ / aha savvato samaṃtā vubbhīhī puravaraṃ rammaṃ Through the force of the Ganges and the irresistible flood of the Śoṇa the fine city in all its beauty will be completely swept away in all directions.

āloiyaniyasallā paccakkhāṇesu niccam ujjuttā / ucchippihiṃti sāhū Gaṃgāe aggavegeṇaṃ
Monks (sāhū) who will have confessed their faults and been continually zealous in respect to abstinence will (nevertheless) be overwhelmed by the full force of the Ganges.

keī phalagavilaggā vaccaṃtī samaṇasamaṇisaṃghāyā / āyariyādī ya tahā uttinnā bīyakūlammi
Some groups (saṃghāyā) of monks and nuns will float along clinging to planks of wood, and so teachers and others will cross to the far shore.

nagarajaṇo vi ya vūḍho koī laddhūṇa phalagakhaṃḍāiṃ / samuttinno bīyataḍaṃ, koī puṇa tattha nihaṇagato
City inhabitants who have been swept away will reach the far shore by hanging on to bits of plank. But others will be drowned there.
675. so atthapaḍitthaddho majjhaṃ hohī jaso ya kittī ya / tammi ya nagare vūḍhe aṇṇaṃ nagaraṃ nivesihiti 'Caturmukha will be proud of his wealth.' After that city has been swept away, he will found another one, (thinking) 'I will (thereby) gain glory (jaso) and renown'. 76 676. aha savvato samaṃtā kārehī puravaraṃ mahārammaṃ / ārāmujjāṇajuyaṃ virāyate devanagaraṃ va Then he will get built a very fine capital in every respect (widespreading) on all sides. It will be like the city of the gods with bowers and gardens.

puṇar avi āyataṇāiṃ, puṇar avi sāhū vi tattha viharaṃti / sammaṃ ca vuṭṭhikāo vāsihi saṃtī ya vaṭṭihiti
Once again there will be temples and monks will wander (viharaṃti) for alms there again. Rain will fall appropriately and there will be peace. 679~verse 653. Caturmukha reverts to his earlier harassment of Jain monks.

taiyā vi Kappa-Vavahāradhārao saṃjato tavāutto / āṇādiṭṭhī samaṇo bhāviyasutto pasaṃsa(ta)maṇo
Then (there will come) one who is familiar with the Kalpasūtra and the Vyavahārasūtra, 77 restrained, devoted to austerity, whose view is fixed on the command of the Jinas, a monk who has internalised the sūtras, of calm mind.

vīreṇa samāiṭṭho Titthogālīe jugapahāṇo ti / sāsaṇuṇṇatijaṇaṇo āyarito hohitī dhīro
He will be a steadfast teacher, described by Mahāvīra in the Titthogālī as the principle one of the era (jugapahāṇo), bringing about elevation of the doctrine, 78 682. Pāḍivato nāmeṇaṃ aṇagāro te ya suvihiyā samaṇā / dukkhaparimoyaṇaṭṭhā chaṭṭha'ṭṭhamata[ve] vi kāhiṃti a homeless monk called Pāḍivata. Those disciplined ascetics will perform the austerity of omitting the sixth and eighth meal 79 in order to relieve suffering.

so dāhiṇalogapatī dhammāṇumatī ahammaduṭṭhamatī / jiṇavayaṇapaḍi(ḍī)kuṭṭhaṃ nāsehiti khippam eva tayaṃ
That lord of the southern region, 90 intent on true religion, ill-disposed towards false religion, will quickly destroy that one who has decried the word of the Jinas. 91 689. chāsītīo samāo uggo uggāu(e) daṃḍanītīe / bhottuṃ gacchati nihaṇaṃ nevvāṇa sahassa do punne The fierce one, having ruled with a duly fierce coercive governance for eighty-six years, will die two thousand years after Mahāvīra's nirvāṇa.
The T then goes on to describe how Indra consecrates Caturmukha's son Datta as king, thus inaugurating a positive period for the Jain religion.

Summary of T verses 628-89
The foregoing translation must at this stage be provisional and imperfect, as must also be any interpretation of it, since the text is frequently elliptical and transitions within it abrupt. For ease of reference I summarise what I take to be the main points of the T's prophetic narrative.
Duṣṭabuddhi will be born in Paṭaliputra in the wake of malign celestial signs. After the birth of this evil individual a stone cow will appear to torment the Jain community. There will be general destruction, anarchy, and irreligion, with Jain monasticism being unable to function adequately (verses 628-33).
After eighteen years Duṣṭabuddhi will become King Caturmukha, who will gain wealth through finding treasure hidden long before by King Nanda in Pāṭaliputra (verses 634-40). The stone cow will prevent Jain monks gaining food. Senior monks will invoke Mahāvīra's prophecy and advocate migration. Some members of the community will leave on the grounds that the prophecy of the cow was being fulfilled and that there existed another prophecy about disastrous flooding. Other members of the community will remain on the grounds that the results of previous actions cannot be escaped (verses 641-50).
Caturmukha will attempt to get the non-orthodox communities to pay a tax. Having released the non-Jains from their obligation, he will oppress the Jain community until the tutelary goddess of Pāṭaliputra intervenes and compels him to apologise. Some Jains will be grudging about this so that Caturmukha will exile them (verses 651-59).
In the wake of threatening portents understood from scriptural prophecy to presage destruction, some of the monastic community will leave. Others will remain behind because of their attachment to places, possessions, and lay supporters. The violent confluence of the rivers Ganges and Śoṇā will lead to catastrophic flooding and the city of Pāṭaliputra will be inundated and swept away. Upright behaviour will not save monks and nuns, although some renunciants and city people will be able to escape drowning (verses 660-72).
The T cursorily predicts three things: the wealth of Caturmukha, the Jain monk Pāḍivata, and King Kalki. In the aftermath of the ruination of Pāṭaliputra and its Jain sacred places, Caturmukha will found another splendid city where Jainism is able to flourish. However, after a period of fifty years he will revert to harassing the Jain community. The renunciant teacher Pāḍivata will appear and be a focus for disciplined ascetic behaviour. Meanwhile, Caturmukha will be in a state of anger with the Jain community. He will ignore divine intervention and demand a sixth part of the alms received by the Jain monks. Imprisoned in a cow stall, the monks supported by a goddess will propitiate the god Indra, who will kill Caturmukha as one contemptuous of Jain teaching (verses 673-89).

Observations and conclusion
It seems reasonable to conclude that the section of the T under review is transmuting the tones of Hindu apocalyptic prophecy of the type found in the Mahābhārata and the Viṣṇupurāṇa to confirm a Jain version of the past, specifically the period subsequent to Saka rule. The main agent within the prophecy is King Caturmukha, who epitomises negative or at least inconsistent behaviour towards the Jains, and is clearly the reverse image of King Kalki, who in Hindu texts appears to restore order out of moral and social chaos. The reference at T verse 673 to King Kalki, whether an interpolation or not, is one of what would appear to be very few occurrences of the name anywhere in Jain literature, 92 and this figure does not have any function in the narrative which describes the restoration of order as effected by the brisk intervention of the god Indra. The early Śvetambara canonical commentator Agastyasiṃha asserts that 'one should not interpret the future by claiming that Kalkin or such-and-such a king endowed with particular qualities will arise'. 93 This proscription may be directed at the Purāṇic compilers who sought to demonise groups such as the Jains. Alternatively, it might explain or provide a context for why the Jains seem to have been less enthusiastic exponents of the genre of apocalyptic literature than the Hindus and Buddhists, or indeed why the author of the T does not always employ the future tense throughout his account (although for consistency's sake I have translated as though he does).
The Guptas are not explicitly named in the verses translated above (apocalyptic reconfigurations of the recent past are by their nature not historically literal), and the dangers of circular reasoning here are obvious. However, I would suggest that the following is relevant for establishing a likely Gupta context for this section of the T, with the proviso that it is most likely the entire span of Gupta history which is being interpreted by our text.
1. The appearance of Caturmukha, the author of disaster for his kingdom and the Jains, is at the outset (verse 628), placed firmly in the context of Vaiṣṇavism, the religious tradition to which the Guptas owed allegiance, and in the city of Pāṭaliputra, for a long period one of the seats of Gupta power. The reference to Rāma and Kṛṣṇa being born there seems to be a deliberate distortion to emphasise this Vaiṣṇava connection. Kalki is described in the Mahābhārata as a brahman, and the name Caturmukha commonly designates the god Brahmā, who came to prominence during the Gupta period as a deity redolent of brahmanical authority.
2. The goddess manifesting herself as a malign stone cow violently removing the Jain monks' capacity to beg for food seems to be a reference to an animal closely bound up with the brahman ritualistic worldview, whose sanctity became firmly established as an aspect of Hinduism by the time of the completion of the Mahābhārata, that is to say by around the beginning of the Gupta period. 94 It is tempting to read the T's description of the Jain monks being imprisoned in a cow stall (verse 686) as a sardonic reference to the languishing of the community under a Vaiṣṇava dispensation.
3. The famine and drought leading to rural depopulation and anarchy referred to by the T, in an apparent echoing of a more elaborate depiction at Mahābhārata 3.186 and 188, may largely be a bleak imaginary vision of social and religious decay. However, whatever the undoubted artistic achievements of this period, there did eventually occur a widespread economic malaise in parts of the Gupta Empire and a decline in the influence of urbanised centres in the Ganges basin. 95 In this context, the T's graphic description of the flooding of Pāṭaliputra and the drowning of many of its inhabitants may well preserve a memory of an actual natural disaster. The T claims that this disaster was caused by the precipitate rising of the water level of the Ganges and its tributary the Śoṇa, and available evidence does suggests that Pāṭaliputra was indeed inundated by flooding, although exactly when this happened is unclear. 96 The T describes Caturmukha as refounding or rebuilding the city and lavishing wealth upon it. However, it seems that in the fifth century the Guptas relocated their court to Sāketa, henceforth known as Ayodhyā. 97 4. Caturmukha's initial attempt to levy a tax from the reluctant Jains, described at T verses 651-54, is frustrated. His second attempt is presented by T verse 685 as a more specific demand for a sixth share of the Jain renunciants' alms. The Manusmṛti and Arthaśāstra, which provide the authority for a king receiving such an allotment, were undoubtedly redacted prior to the Gupta period, although no doubt both were influential during that time. However, an actual Gupta connection to this institution can be found in the writings of Kālidāsa (c. 400-50 CE), whom few would dispute was a Gupta court poet and whose poems and dramas can be interpreted as articulating much of the regal and brahmanical ideology which underpinned the dynasty. 98 So Raghuvaṃśa 5.8 contains an expression of goodwill on the part of a king towards a hermitage river 'whose sandy shores are studded with the sixth part of gleaned corn' (uñchaṣaṣṭhāṅkitasaikatāni), while at 17.65 the king is described as being 'a recipient of the sixth share' (ṣaḍaṃśabhāk) from ascetics and social classes alike because of the protection he provides. At Abhijñānaśākuntala 2.12, p. 43, the vidūṣaka tells his master King Duṣyanta that he can return to the hermitage where he has seen the girl Śakuntalā under the pretext of collecting 'the sixth share of wild rice' (ṇīvāracchaṭṭhabhāaṃ), while at 5.4 of the same play Duṣyanta's chamberlain muses on the untiring duty of the king, 'who is supported by the sixth share' (ṣaṣṭhāṃśavṛtteḥ). The T's negative portrayal of Caturmukha and Kālidāsa's idealised depiction of Duṣyanta and other Hindu kings in respect to the appropriation of the sixth share represent the two sides of the imaginative coin of Gupta kingship as envisaged from a Jain and Hindu perspective.
If my speculative assessment is justifiable, then by the T's oblique reading the Jain experience during the Gupta period was complex, frequently fraught, and embattled; less frequently, it was secure and prosperous (verse 677). While many Jains are described as leaving for other lands in times of difficulty, it is made clear that others remained. Ohira's hypothesis of a mass migration of the Jain community to the west and south to escape the Gupta realms is then no doubt overstated, and the absence of Jains from much of the archaeological and epigraphical picture during the Gupta period may simply have been the result of economic decline in various parts of the empire and the consequent geographical relocation of sections of the community. The T's picture does, however, leave room for the suspicion that the supposed religious tolerance of the Guptas may also have been overstated. At any rate, whatever the T's vantage point might have been, whether chronologically near to the final collapse into relative obscurity of Gupta hegemony, 99 or more distant from it, the work's significance as a unique piece of testimony within Jain tradition is worthy of more notice that it has hitherto received. 16. The reading Celū is guaranteed according to Willis, Archaeology, p. 333, note 277, but the name is unique as such, and seems slightly unlikely. It may possibly be connected with cela(ka), meaning little more than 'pupil'. The most recent treatment of the inscription by Thaplyal (see note 14) interprets the word kṣamaṇa appended to the monks' names as the equivalent of kṣapaṇaka, in fact a term applied to Digambara monks by their opponents. However, there is no doubt that the expression appended to these monks' names is the same as the Prākrit honorific khamāsamaṇa (~Sanskrit kṣamāśramaṇa), and has perhaps been misheard or misunderstood as being in a quasi-rhyming relationship with -śramaṇa by a scribe unfamiliar with Jain usage. This honorific occurs in the liturgical formula of homage (vandanaka) offered to a monastic teacher and implies that he is an ascetic who possesses a series of virtues of which the first is kṣamā, 'patience'. The expression is incorporated into the names of three Śvetāmbara monks mentioned at the end of a list of prominent teachers found in the Kalpasūtra. See Jaina Sutras: Part One, trans. by Hermann Jacobi (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1884), p. 295. However, such a formal style for Śvetambara teachers ceased to be current some time after the sixth or seventh centuries CE. 17. The name of the teacher Sarpasena seems odd, although the spelling appears certain. Its second component 'sena' is a lineage indicator which was to become particularly common among the Digambarassee A. N. Upadhye, Upadhye: Papers (Mysore: University of Mysore, 1983), pp. 245-51but was not unknown among the Śvetāmbaras. However, while many Digambaras incorporated nāga as the first part of their renunciant names, the more basic serpentine noun 'sarpa'does not seem to be attested in this role. It is difficult to avoid the suspicion that the more common name Sarvadeva has been misheard in the course of the inscription being recited to the scribe, perhaps, as the uncertainty evinced by the term kṣamaṇa described in note 16 suggests, by somebody not particularly familiar with Jain usage. 18. Willis, Archaeology, p. 333, note 278, proposes reading kṣamaṇācārya. The expression pāṇipātrika is a common epithet normally used of monks of the Digambara sect who differentiate themselves from the Śvetāmbaras who use alms bowls. However, the practice of using the hands as an alms bowl was also prescribed amongst the Śvetāmbaras for advanced monks following the jinakalpa, the 'practice of the Jinas', a more intense mode of renunciant life. As noted above, the honorific kṣamāśramaṇa, however represented in the inscription, seems to be characteristic of Śvetāmbara usage, and the conclusion must be that the monks in question were Śvetambaras, although the term may not have had a formally sectarian sense at this particular time. 19