Jaina In Bṛhatkōnkaṇ

We said last time that Konkani identity draws from its <i>kshatriya </i>(<i>jaina</i>) and the <i>brāmhaṇa</i> past, along with its <i>vaḍukar</i> origin. The task before us is to trace the journey of this <i>jaina</i> element all the way from <i>Magadha</i> to Konkan. Perhaps the <i>Vengi </i>country, spread over what are today the Godavari and Krishna districts of Andhra Pradesh, played a great role in this journey. <i>Vengi </i>was a great meeting place of roads according to Jouveau-Dubreuil; here converged the roads to <i>Kalinga</i> (Orissa), <i>Drāvi</i><i>ḍa</i> (Tamilnadu), <i>Karnātic</i> (Karnataka), <i>Mahārāshtra</i> (Maharashtra) and <i>Kosalā</i> (spread over parts of Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh and Bihar). [Subramanian, 1932 : <i>Buddhist Remains In Andhra</i>, v] The <i>jaina</i> people, and with them the Jaina and Buddhist religions in the later millennia, travelled from <i>Magadha</i> to <i>Vengi</i>, and thence to the rest of Deccan and <i>Bṛhatkōnkaṇ</i>. The path would obviously be <i>Magadha</i> –<i>Kalinga</i> – <i>Āndhra</i> - <i>Konkan</i>; but it could also be, in addition, <i>Magadha</i> –<i>Kosalā</i>– <i>Āndhra</i> - <i>Konkan</i>. As we have said earlier, Vindhya were sufficiently porous to let an abundant exchange of goods, people and culture between the Indo-Gangetic Plain and the southern peninsula. But through the first route it seems to have been a flood. [Sudhakar, 2013 : <i>Emergence Of Vengi Region As A Seat Of Power</i>, Journal of Business Management & Social Sciences Research, vol. 2, no. 11, 39] Could there have been a third route : Out of Rajasthan and Gujarat ? Looks inconsistent with our definition of the <i>jaina</i> as the <i>kshatriya</i> from Magadha. But let us not rule out that possibility, however inconsistent it may seem with our hypothesis. What if our hypothesis is wrong ab initio ? What if the <i>jaina</i> inhabited the entire Indo-Gangetic plain, and not just the eastern extremity of it