Trends of Jainism in Tamralipta: An Over‑view

Summary

Korak K. Chaudhuri and Saumyendu Chakraborty examine archaeological and literary evidence for Jainism in Tamralipta, a historic port town in present‑day Tamluk, West Bengal. Decades of archaeological explorations in South and South‑West Bengal have uncovered numerous Jain relics, and when these finds are combined with indigenous and foreign textual references, they indicate that Midnapore’s popular life was deeply influenced by Jainism for about a thousand yearsfile:///home/oai/share/jain_journal_1993_07_520111_hr6_ocred.pdf#:~:text=Active%20and%20persistent%20archaeological%20explorations,period%2C%20covering%20about%20one%20thousand. However, the authors caution that research is hindered by scarce materials and the lack of interdisciplinary approaches linking history with the social sciencesfile:///home/oai/share/jain_journal_1993_07_520111_hr6_ocred.pdf#:~:text=years,As%20a. They highlight unresolved questions such as when Jainism first entered Midnapore; even the broader issue of when Jainism came to Bengal remains obscuredfile:///home/oai/share/jain_journal_1993_07_520111_hr6_ocred.pdf#:~:text=consequence%2C%20it%20has%20not%20been,light%20of%20the%20above%20dis. Drawing on Jain texts, the article notes that the Kalpa‑sūtra records that the 23rd Tīrthaṅkara Parśvanātha preached the caturyama dharma in Pundra, Rāḍha and Tamralipta around 800 BCE, suggesting an early introductionfile:///home/oai/share/jain_journal_1993_07_520111_hr6_ocred.pdf#:~:text=It%20is%20known%20from%20the,Still%20more%20plausible%20is. The Bhāgavatī‑sūtra recounts how a wealthy merchant of Tamralipta named Tamali Moriyaputta was so moved by Mahāvīra’s discourses that he became a Jain monk, indicating contact with Jainism by the time of Mahāvīra (6th century BCE)file:///home/oai/share/jain_journal_1993_07_520111_hr6_ocred.pdf#:~:text=direction%2013%20derived%20from%20the,Here%20it%20should%20be%20remembered. The authors hypothesize that present‑day Tambuli communities may trace their heritage to this merchantfile:///home/oai/share/jain_journal_1993_07_520111_hr6_ocred.pdf#:~:text=is%20a%20fact%20that%20a,the%20areas%20of%20their%20habi. They observe that Buddhist texts mention only Anga and Magadha as eastern janapadas, whereas Jain texts also list Vanga and Ladha as Aryan lands, implying early Jain presence in the Bengal deltafile:///home/oai/share/jain_journal_1993_07_520111_hr6_ocred.pdf#:~:text=Mahajanapadas%2C%20as%20contained%20in%20the,This%20may%2096%20taken. The article suggests that Jainism may have reached Tamralipta before other Aryan religions and notes that Parśvanātha’s missionaries faced resistance from local tribes but ultimately spread Jainism across South‑West Bengalfile:///home/oai/share/jain_journal_1993_07_520111_hr6_ocred.pdf#:~:text=indicate%20that%20among%20the%20different,acquaintance%20with%20different%20territorial%20divisions. For the subsequent centuries, the authors refer to lists of teachers in the Kalpa‑sūtra and Thera‑vāli to trace the religious lineage, concluding that Jainism flourished in Tamralipta but later declined due to competition from Buddhism, Śaivism, Vaiṣṇavism and external invasions.