Acharya Bhadrabahu

About

Acharya Bhadrabahu (433 BC - 357 BC ?) was a Jain monk. He is more famously known as a spiritual teacher of Chandragupta Maurya and author of several texts related to Jainism, including some of the most important works, Upsargahara Stotra and Kalpa Sutra. Bhadrabahu was born in Pundravardhana, now in Bangladesh. During this time, the secondary capital of the Mauryas was Ujjain. While there Bhadrabahu was able to foresee through his Nimitta Jnana (subtle cognition of causes and effects) that there would be a 12-year famine across North India. He decided the famine would make it harder for monks to survive and migrated with a group of monks to South India, bringing with him Chandragupta, the founder of the Mauryan Empire turned Jain monk.