Position of the Nirgranthas (Jainas) in Bengal during the period of \Matsyanyāya" or "The Anarchy""
Summary
This essay examines why literary and epigraphic records of the Nirgranthas (Jainas) disappear from Bengal after the middle of the seventh century. It begins by noting that Jainism flourished in Bengal for over a millennium, with the Chinese traveller Hiuen‑Tsang’s seventh‑century chronicle as the last clear testimony. Scholars have ascribed the subsequent silence to two factors: the efflorescence of Buddhism under the Pāla kings and the revival of Brahmanical Hinduism under the Sena and Varman dynasties. The author contextualises this decline within the period known in Sanskrit as ‘Mātsyanyāya’—literally ‘the law of the big fish devouring the small’—when, following King Śaśānka’s death, Bengal experienced anarchy, foreign aggression and a breakdown of central authority. Drawing on sources such as the Ārya Mañjuśrī‑mūla‑kalpa and Tārānātha, he argues that Buddhism remained vigorous in many parts of Bengal; persecutions under Śaśānka were aimed more at Nirgranthas than at Buddhists. Jaina monks therefore migrated from Karnasuvarṇa and other centres to forests and hills in western Bengal, a pattern consistent with earlier exoduses under Bhadrabāhu. Archaeological evidence, including a copperplate from 478/79 A.D. discovered at Pāhādpur, records land gifts for a Nirgrantha vihāra; this site later became the celebrated Somapura Mahāvihāra, suggesting that some monasteries described in ruins belonged originally to Jains. The essay concludes that Jainism did not vanish but survived in obscurity; the ruined monasteries along the Ganges that chronicles attribute solely to Buddhists may in fact include many Nirgrantha establishments.
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Conclusion
The article cautions against assuming that Nirgranthas disappeared from Bengal after the seventh century. In the political chaos of Mātsyanyāya, Jains were persecuted and their monasteries destroyed, prompting monks to flee to safer regions. Some deserted monasteries subsequently became Brahmanical or Buddhist institutions. Inscriptional evidence such as the Pāhādpur copperplate shows that Jain establishments existed well into the eighth century. Thus, while Jainism’s public profile dimmed under Pāla patronage of Buddhism and resurgent Hinduism, the faith persisted through migration and adaptation rather than total collapse.