The Symbolic Significance of the Number Twelve in Ancient India

Abstract

There is a story that the Jain saint Bhadrabāhu predicted a famine which would last for twelve years and, as a result of this famine, he led twelve thousand Jains in search of better lands. King Candragupta Maurya is said to have accompanied them and lived for twelve years after the death of the saint in Mysore; then, according to the legend, he starved himself to death. In commenting on this Jain story, Vincent Smith says, “… after much consideration I am disposed to accept the main facts as affirmed by tradition. It being certain that Candragupta was quite young and inexperienced when he ascended the throne in or about 322 B.C., he must have been under fifty when his reign terminated twenty-four years later … the twelve years' famine is not incredible. In short, the Jain tradition holds the field, and no alternative exists.”