Jain Journal 1999 01

Author(s): Jain Bhawan Publication
Publisher: Jain Bhawan Publication
Catalog link: https://jainqq.org/explore/520133/1

Page #1

VOL. XXXIII

No. 3 JANUARY
ISSN 0021-4043
A QUARTERLY
JAINOLOGY

ON
| जैन भवन
JAIN BHAWAN PUBLICATION
1999

Page #2

The Concept of Sastra-dāna in Jainism
Hampa Nagarajaih
The Basic Idea of God
Harisatya Bhattacharya
Contents
Essentials of Jaina Metaphysics and Epistemology Harimohan Bhattacharya
Status of Woman in Jainism in Karnataka Kamala Hampana
1. Nal-gavundi Jakkiyabbe 2. Saviyabbe- the warrior 3. Patra-Jagadale-Bācaladevi 4. Poetess Jakkatambā
5. Rāņi-cenna-bhairā-devi
Book Review
The Great Kushana Testament by B.N. Mukherjee Satya Ranjan Banerjee

81
86
92
101
104
106
107
110
113
116

Page #3

Book Review
The Great Kushana Testament by B.N. Mukherjee, Indian Museum, Calcutta, 1995, price: Rs. 100/-.
One of the greatest contributions to the area of ancient Indian history and culture is the discovery of the Rabatak Bactrian Inscription of the Kushana king Kanishka the First. This Inscription will act as a harbringer of historical studies for many decades of the twenty-first century. Although lots of discoveries were made in the last century, and in the beginning of the present century, there are still many more historical records which are still hidden from the eyes of the scholars in the abyss of edacious Time. It is true indeed that the history of the Kushana empire has been written and rewritten (even by Professor Mukherjee himself) because of the discoveries of new material, this discovery of Rabatak Inscription in the Bactrian language is a landmark in the history of the Kushana empire and also on the Indo-Iranian borderlands. Therefore, the Great Kushana Testament by Professor B.N. Mukherjee is a treasure-house for the history of ancient India. Professor Mukherjee, one of the brilliant outstanding authorities on the history of the Kushana Emperor, has contributed quite a lot to the history of the Kushana Empire by writing books, monographs and articles on this period of history. (The Kushana Genealogy 1967; The Economic Factors in Kushana History, 1970; The Rise and Fall of the Kushana Emperor, 1968). The present treatise is another such addition to this series and has shed many valuable information and food for the historians to interpret the history of the Kushana emperor Kanishka the First.
In March 1993 the Rabatak Inscription was discovered and Professor N. Sims-Williams of the School of Oriental and African Studies, London, made a study of this Inscription, and sent a complimentary copy to Professor Mukherjee for his opinion. Professor Mukherjee, a veteran historian and a polyglot, immediately thought that instead of writing a review of the book, it would be better that a revised version with new interpretation of this Inscription would be rather a welcome idea for the proper understanding and interpretation of these newly discovered historical facts as recorded in this Inscription. To know the basic principles of the Bactrian language and to interpret accordingly became very much imperative and the learned scholar was deeply engrossed in explaining the Inscription both linguistically

Page #4

BOOK REVIEW
and historically. The outcome of his research is the brilliant expose of the Kushan history in this book.
117
The Rabatak Inscription was found in a hill locally known as Kafir's Castle in a locality called Rabatak. The site is twenty-five miles north of Pul-i-Khumri in the Baghlan area of Kataghan in Afghanistan. In March 1993 the stone on which the Inscription is inscribed was found "together with fragments of a sculpture of a lion (four paws and a part of the mane) and architectural elements, including the base of a pilaster and a capital decorated on two sides with circular styled lotus motifs." "All these were noticed by an official party sent by the Governor of the area of Baghlan after hearing that the local people had been digging up in the hill bricks (20 x 10 x 8 cm) and carved stones for using them to rebuild their war ravaged residences."
The Rabatak Inscription consists of twenty-three lines. The text (pp. 13-14) is given in Greek script and it is transliterated into the Roman script (pp. 15-16) along with the English translation of the Inscription (pp. 16-17). These twenty-three lines have changed certain previous ideas and needs reinterpreting.
This Inscription has three features. Firstly, it is written in Greek script; secondly, the language is Bactrian, a middle Iranian language, and thirdly, the vocabulary of the Inscription is mainly of Indo-Iranian origin. There are abundant Indian words Bactrianised at that time in such a way that they indicated a close relationship between India and Iran in hoary antiquity.
Professor Mukherjee has informed us that the Greek characters in the Bactrian version of the Dasht-e-Nawur record included many illformed letters, one of which was the ancient use of the Greek sigmas. In the primitive Greek alphabet there was a sigma known as 'sampi' which was lost by the time of Homeric Greek (c. 800 B.C.). This sampi (-san) sigma of Greek was often used for numbers denoting 6, 90, and 900. Professor Mukherjee has said that the use of Doric 'san' sigma is very much noticeable in the Kushana records. The use of this Greek alphabet shows the antiquity and importance of this Bactrian Inscription. There are other peculiarities of this language which the author has discussed in the second chapter of the book.
Professor Mukherjee has further informed us quite rightly that the speakers of the Bactrian language adopted the Greek alphabet to write their speech, probably under the impact of the Hellenistic rulers. The use of the language spread to Sogdiana and to the South-east of

Page #5

JAIN JOURNAL: Vol-XXXIII, No. 3 January 1999
the Hindukush in the Kushana and post-Kushana periods. HsuanTsang noticed in the second quarter of the seventh cent. A.D. the use of twentyfive Greek letters (24 basic Greek letters plus one san, a sigma). Among the latest use of the Bactrian language we can refer to the Bactrian version of the Tochi Valley Inscription of the year 862 A.D.
118
In the first line of the Inscription the name Kanishka Kushana (Bactrian Kaneske Kosano) occurs and the whole inscription describes the deeds and activities of the Kushana king Kanishka. In the thirdfourth lines it is stated that Kanishka discontinued the use of the Ionian speech, one of the dialects of the Greek language, and in its place the Aryan speech (ariao ostado) was introduced. This shows how important is the Inscription in connection with the Indian context. In several lines of the Inscription the name of India as Sindo (- Sindhu) occurs, and it is said that several proclamations have been made to India in connection with the submission to the will of the king.
The masterly exposition of Professor Mukherjee is exhibited in Chapter III, where the historical interpretation of this Bactrian Inscription is expatiated. This chapter manifests not only the scholarship and deep study of the subject, but also the command over the ancient history of Iran and India to such an extent that one needs to study this chapter again and again. The author has also ferreted out the exegesis of this chapter by ransacking the Chinese and Greek sources including the Old Iranian in order to explain the historical background of this Inscription. It appears that the author's contribution to the interpretation of the historical information is unique and the identification of the Kanishka era with the Saka era 78 A.D. can be crystallised by this Inscription. It is further said in the Inscription that in the year 1 Kanishka I's authority was proclaimed in India in all Satrapis and in different cities, like Koonadiano (-Kaundinya), Ozeno (Ujjayini), Zageda (Saketa - Ayodhya), Kozambo (Kausambi), Palabotra (Pataliputra) and Ziritambo (Shri Champa). It is interesting to note that these cities lay to the east and south of Mathura upto which locality Vima had already conquered. So these cities in different areas must have been captured or subdued by Kanishka I himself.
The book contains copious plates of different sculptures and the Rabatak Inscription from different angles, coins, eye-copy of the Inscription, and an index. The paper and the printing of the book is excellent for which the Director of Indian Museum, Calcutta, is to be congratulated.

Page #6

BOOK REVIEW
119 The Great Kushana Testament is an exceptionally well-written text with copious notes and bibliographical references. Every statement of Professor Mukherjee is authenticated by means of well-documented references. The books and journals consulted by the author are so rare and precious that unless one has an exceptionally rich private collection, it is difficult to accumulate all these references from one library. Rare Chinese and Greek sources are one of the remarkable features of this book. The method of research framed in this book is of a unique type and this treatise will act as a model for research work for the future generations to come. The book is also written in a very good florid and forceful style which is seldom seen in a foot-noted and serious book like the present one. In conclusion, it can be said that the Great Kushana Testament is one of the best contributions to the Kushana history at the end of the present century and every student of Indian history and culture must peruse this book as a part and parcel of his academic curriculum.
Satya Ranjan Banerjee

Page #7

JAIN JOURNAL
Vol. XXXIII
No. 3 January
1999
THE CONCEPT OF ŚĀSTRA-DĀNA IN JAINISM
HAMPA. NAGARAJAIAH Books on Jaina discipline have prescribed the ideal path of the layman and has laid greater emphasis upon the secular aspects of the ritual. In the Jaina social organisation every householder is expected to carry out six duties :
Śrāvakācāra, book of layman's discipline, of Padmanandi, has listed the six duties of a laity (Ācārya Jinasena, Somadevasūri, Samantabhadra, Amitagati, Vasumandi and others have laid down similar prescription).
devapūjā gurūpāsti svādhyāyah samyamas-tapah
dānam ceti grhasthānām șaț-karmāņi dine dine The Sat-karmas : the six acts prescribed for every laity are1. Devapūja : Worship of the Tirtankaras, the omniscient
spiritual teachers or builders of the ford. 2. Gurūpāsti : Listening to venerate teachers. 3. Svādhyāya: The study of the scriptures. 4. Samyama : Restraint including observance of the eight
basic restraints (mūlaguņas) and minor Vratas
pertaining only to lay people. 5. Tapas : Austerity, especially fasting on holy days.
6. Dāna : Charity, including giving alms to mendicants. Of the above Śrāvaka-Vratas, the sixfold sets of practices which the householder were to perform as regularly as possible, Suādhyāya and Dāna, the study of scripture and charity are complimentary. These acts are contemplated to encourage the quality and capacity to engage in dāna, the act of giving. The act of dāna was conceived to refrain the lay votary from his too much involment in labha, obtaining, bhoga enjoyment and upabhoga, repeated enjoyment. The act of dāna-vrata, the vow of charity has two faces, the spiritual and the cultural. It implies an objective of socio-economic discipline. For over two and a

Page #8

82
JAIN JOURNAL : Vol-XXXIII, No. 3 January 1999 half millennium the four-fold congregation of the Jaina-Sangha has practised this benevolence act of däna and the spirit of it has ceased. It is an historical fact attested by hundreds of inscriptions that this act of liberal grants by the Jaina laity, the secular and religious life of India is the beneficiary. There are four kinds of dāna, āhārafood, auşadha olim bhaisajya-medicine, abhaya, shelter to living beings with fear of injury or death and sāstra, religious literature.
The donor should decide carefully which individuals are worthy to receive his gifts. The act of charity is so well designed that the members of the laity should choose the proper items, proper time proper receipients and proper cause, even in these meritorious persuits. The act of sharing with ascetic or worthy guests or respectful service is called atithi-sam-vibhaga and Vaiya-Vșttya The delicacy involved in the issue of charity is worth pondering; there are five transgressions (aticäras) of this danavrata
1. Placing food on a living thing like green leaf. 2. Covering food with a living thing. 3. Delegation of host's duties to someone. 4. Lack of respect in giving, or being envious of another donor. 5. Not giving at the proper time.
Such acts of carelessness or lack of sincerity are forbidden. The donor should shun all ego, should be humble, should not expect any reward or fame in return, should not regret.
The unique concept of Śästra-dāna, to distribute free copies of precious religious texts, has helped the literati to have an easy access to the required Granthas. Invariably a well-arranged and uptodate Śruta-bhāņdāra, library was attached to all Jain-temples; to-put it the other way, Jinālayas used to maintain good libraries. Jains had always given priority to learning and education. Whenever a monk or a nun required a Šāstra-Grantha a canonical text for Svādhyāya, it was made easily available in the Śruta-Bhāndāra a system prevalent to this day, both in the north and south.
This paper attempts to illustrate how the act of Šāstra-Dana has helped the field of religion and literature in Karnātaka, by citing out of a number of instances, only two examples of the Women celebraties.
(A)
Attimabbe (C.950-1018 C.E), an illustrious lady was honoured by Tailapa-II (973-997), the emperor of the Kalyāņa Calukyas with the coveted title of dānacintāmaņi which means 'a gem yielding everything

Page #9

NAGARAJAIAH : THE CONCEPT OF SĀSTRA-DĀNA IN JAINISM
83 wanted by its possessor. She was a dāna-vinode, a woman taking pleasure in giving gifts. She had the following cognomen:
a. Gunadanka-Kārthi: Famous in possessing all the virtues. b. Mahā-sati-ratna : Jewel head of the great women. c. Kavivara-kāmadhenu: A Desire fulfilling cow of the great poets. d. Jinadharma-patāke : Fluttering flag of the Jainism. e. Abhilaşitārtha-dāna-vinode: She who takes pleasure in giving
whatever gifts asked for. f. Kațaka-pavitre : Immaculate of the army.
Attimabbe was a great patron of art, architecture and literature. During her life time she caused 1501 temples; a great feat that no where and at no time, in the world a similar instance is found where a single person is responsible for constructing 1501 temples in one's life time. When Attimabbe learnt that the palm-leaf copies of śāntipurāņa (a poem authored by Ponna (C.E. 960), a poet and polymath, a biography of the sixteenth Tirthankara, consisting of twelve cantos in campū style) are no more available to the learned section, she immediately got another thousand copies of palm-leaf manuscripts by employing regular proficient copyists; and she freely distributed it as an act ofśāstra-dāna; thanks to her timely action the poem has survived to this day (I should humbly record here that I had the honour and pleasure of editing the above work with the introduction and prose translation). Attimabbe also patronised Ranna (C. 960-1016), a poet laureate in the court of the Calukya kingdom, who composed Ajitapurāņam, (C.E. 993) the biography of the second Tirthankara, and the palm-leaf copies of the kävya poem were distributed as sastra-dana; it is considered as one of the best classics of Kannada literature.
(B)
The illustrious erudite Virasena-ācārya who was a royal teacher to both Jagattunga and Nīpatunga who had Amoghavarsa-I (814-877) as his second name, kings of the Rāştrakūtas, wrote Dhavală-Ţikā, the commentary of Satkhaņdāgama of 72 thousand verses using both Prakrit and Sanskrit languages (C.E. 815). When the copies of the above Dhavalā-Țikā were not available to either the public or the ascetics, a pious lady took the onus of getting the canonical text copied; how it was done, needs an in extenso description, because it is an interesting episode.
Bacaladevi, a consort of Bhujabala-Ganga-Permmāờideva, king of Mandall-thousand, a principality in Shimogha district, had caused a beautiful caityālaya at Bannikere. It was the best of temples in the Mandali-nād dedicated to Arhat-Pārsva, the 23rd Tirthankara.

Page #10

84
JAIN JOURNAL: Vol-XXXIII, No. 3 January 1999 Subhacandradeva-munipa, a pupil of Maladhārideva-yamina, who was a moon to the ocean of mūla-sangha, Desiga-gaņa, was the chiefprecepter of the Bannikere Caityālaya. He had mastered the agama literature and had the cognomen Siddhanta-ratnākara, an ocean to the dogmas of Jaina philosophy. Once he wanted to read the DhavalaTikā to teach his pupil but the palm-leaf text was not there in the Śrutabhāņdāra of the Bannikere Caityālaya. Devamati alias Ratideviyakka (the mother-in-law of Mandali-nād rulerand the mother of Ganga-mahādevi the crown-queen of Bhujabala-GangaPermmadideva-II (1103-1118) a lady votary of the ascetic SubhacandraSiddhāntadeva, had camped at Bannikere Jina-Pārsva temple for the ceremony of the concluding religious observance of Śrutapañcami-vrata the restraint (vow) of the 'scripture-fifth', a Jaina holiday; It is observed usually during the month of June, commemorating the day of C.E. 150, when the adept Bhūtabali and Puşpadanta first put the āgamas scriptures into written form. During the observance of the vow Śrutapañcami, literature of the scriptural material symbolising the sacred teachings of the Jinas, will be donated to the temple or monk or nun.
Knowing the need and excellence of Dhavalā-Țika, Deviyakka immediately arranged for copying the text. Because of the timely action of Deviyakka, a copy of Viresena-ācāry's Dhavalā-Țikā was made available not only to her revered guru Subhacandra-Siddhānta-Deva but the whole world, because that is the one and only copy available to this day.
Deviyakka (Devamathi, Demati, Ratidevi), daughter of Nāgale, sister of both Dandanāyakitti Lakkale (wife of general Gangarāja) and Būcirāja, was wife of Cāmunda, a royal merchant. She has been compared to Sitā. Laksmi and sāsana-devatā, attendant goddess of Jina, the agent in giving protection to the supreme Jaina faith. Devamati, liberal in giving food to the people, refuged to the frightened; good medicine to those rendered miserable by disease and science and the āgamas (scriptural knowledge) to those desirous of learning them. Devamati, at the close of her life, fixed her mind on the Arhat, according to the prescribed rites for all lay votaries, observed sallekhanā at Śravanabelgoļa on the Candragiri hill, and entered the high heaven as if her own home in C.E. 1120. Her elder sister Lakkale alias Lakshmi, set up a nisidhi stone pillar, resembling a column of victory, for that excellent lady Demavati (EC. II (R) 158 (129) 1120. pp. 99-101).
Whoever conceived the act of sästra-dāna, their dream is realised, there is no other holier or greater sastra-dana ever known than this in the annals of Jainism.

Page #11

NAGARAJAIAH : THE CONCEPT OF SĀSTRA-DĀNA IN JAINISM
85 Similarly another pious lady Mallikabbe, a queen consort of śāntisena-rāja also got copied by the skilled and professional copyists, Mahā-dhavalā (Mahābanana). Sue is praised with the epithets Šilanidhi, an abode of amiable disposition and mahā-yasasvini, a great splendour of glory. Mallikabbe, to commemorate the completion of the Srīpañcami-vrata, she had the Mahā-dhavalā copied and respectfully dedicated to her preceptor Māghanandi-muni, as an act of śāstradāna, providing āgama texts, one of the six essential duties of an householder. Though further details about Mallikabbe and her spouse śāntisena-rāja are still lacking, yet it can be safely said that Mallikabbe, perhaps on the guidance of Devamati, did this act of greater significance, in the beginning of 12th century. Māghaṇandi-SiddhāntaDeva was also a senior confrère of Subhacandra-Siddhānta-Deva, in the Mandali-nād principality.
The copyists of the Dhavalā commentaries were also Jains and well-versed in Prakrit, Sanskrit and Kannada. They have taken extra care and bestowed keen interest in selecting 'Sitāle' the best variety of palm-leaf more flexible and durable, with the maximum length of thirty inches long and 32 to 4 inches in width. Instead of using 'Kantha', an iron style to write on the palm-leaf, the devoted copyists have used a specially prepared ink that would last long for centuries. Miniature paintings on the palm-leaf, wherever possible, is done with extraordinary details and care.
The resplendent Subhacandra-Siddhāntadeva was a pontiff of Mūlasangha, Desiya-gana, Pustaka-gaccha and a chief pupil of Maladhārideva-yamina. One of the inscriptions of Śravanabelagola, where the ascetic expired on 3-8-1123, Friday, has recorded in detail the achievements of Subhacandradeva in detail, he is praised as a crest-jewel of philosophy, benefactor of the world, destroyer of the pride of the cupid. He was the preceptor of the entire family of the illustrious Ganga-rāja, the Mahā-pracaņda-dandanāyaka the general of Vişnuvardhana, the Hoysala king. Gangarāja consecrated the nisidhi at Śravanabelagola where the seer died; on that occasion Jakkaņabbe, another disciple of the monk and elder brother's wife and sister-inlaw of Gangarāja, also arranged for the worship of Jina. (EC. II (R). No. 135 (117). A.D. 1123. pp. 79-83).

Page #12

THE BASIC IDEA OF GOD
HARISTYA BHATTACHARYYA
Subjectively speaking, religion is a consciousness, establishing the closest possible relationship between a man and being, transcending that man's ordinary empirical self. Religious beliefs and practices are due to the various attempts to establish that relationship. Although this general statement may be made about all the religions, current or past, in their positive and concrete forms, they have differed from each other more or less widely. Some religions are polytheistic, believing in a number of gods; some, henotheistic, in which one of the gods is given the supreme position, while the others are more or less subordinated to him; Zoroastrianism, in some of its aspects, seems to posit two contending deities; while monotheism admits only one God. As regards the question of the God's creating the universe, the religions do not seem to have been unanimous. Some maintained that God created the universe out of nothing; some held that matter in its ultimacy was independent of God and was only shaped and moulded in definite forms by the creator; others contended that not only matter but time, space and an infinite number of souls had independent realities of their own and that the creator's business was only to build up bodies and environments or requisite circumstances for those psychical beings. It is, however, manifest that creation involves an internal urge in the Creator and as such implies some sort of imperfection in him. Accordingly it is only a finite being that can be a creator in any sense, so that if God be conceived as the supreme Being with infinite perfection, he cannot be supposed to be the Creator of the Universe. As a matter of fact, some of the rational religions maintain that man alone is the creator of his own destiny and dispense with the hypothesis of the world-creator.
Amidst the variednesses of religions, it is certainly difficult to pick out the fundamental features which can be found in all religions. The conception of some sort of God as a being superior to the finite beings is of course the central doctrine in all forms of religion but differences crop up when we look to the positive contents of this idea of God. We have seen how world-creation has not been attributed to God by some religions. Upon a careful survey of all the most basic doctrines connected with the theories of God, it appears that all religions, of whatever age and in whatever stage of development they may be, agree in attributing 'power' to their God or Gods. Even in totemism, a 'totem'

Page #13

BHATTACHARYYA: THE BASIC IDEA OF GOD
is held sacred, because it is supposed to have the 'power' of protecting the worshipper from evil or of curing his disease; because, in other words, beneficial influences are believed to be exercised upon the worshipper by the 'totem', while it is held to punish the disregard of its sacredness. Similarly, in fetichism; the 'fetich' e.g., a stick or a piece of stone is venerated, because a peculiar 'potency' is attributed to it by reason of some peculiarity in its structure or of its being informed by a powerful spirit or of its being a sign or a representation of a transcending deity. God is thus in all religions, essentially a 'powerful' being. Another fundamental characteristic of the God in all religions is that he has the 'immediate apprehension' of all things. A third similar divine feature is the 'Omniscience' of God, i.e. the fact of his truly knowing all things and phenomena. The last attribute that is ascribed to God in every religion is that he is essentially a being in uninterrupted 'joy'. So, these four, -infinite 'power', infinite 'apprehension', infinite 'knowledge' and infinite 'joy' are the features, attributed to God, in every religion.
The finding that an idea of God with the above-mentioned four attributes, is immanent in all forms of religion leads one to make a guess about the fundamentals of a universal religion i.e., a religion, acceptable to all the religious-minded people. It is that the God of the universal religion, is the God of supreme 'power', of infinite 'apprehension', of 'omniscience' and of unobstructed 'joy'. It is to be noted, however, that while the belief in such a God is traceable in all religions, it would be wrong to hold that this belief is fully rationalised and perfected in all of them, so far as its object is concerned. It may be that people of all ages have an instinctive belief in some form of Divinity with its four aspects, as indicated above; but this intuition must be held in the process of continuous rationalisation throughout the course of the religious history of a people. In the course of evolution, the native religious predisposition is supplemented by the intellectualism of the people, so that they come to develop a more and more perfected idea of God and his four features. Often-times, a religious hero who is much in advance of the ordinary people and who is variously regarded as a 'Messiah', a 'Prophet', a 'Seer' or 'God's own begotten', gives a more comprehensive and rational account of God. Sometimes, thinkers again apply their intelligence to the problem and arrive at a more perfect conception of God. But whether the religious idea is developed in the former manner by the teachings of a 'Revealer', i.e., the socalled 'founder' of the religion or amplified by the speculations of philosophers, there is always that original basis or intuitive propensity for the religious attitude which underlies the later belief, based upon argumentation or the faith founded upon the instructions of the Teacher'.

87

Page #14

88
JAIN JOURNAL : Vol-XXXIII, No. 3 January 1999 The extremists of the evolutionist school do not admit the above innate religious tendency in man to believe in a God and try to prove that man began with a clean mind, clear of all religious pre-dispositions. But, however, much down in the mentality of primitive people we go, we always come across a groping there towards an 'indifinite' beyond the presentations of the senses, a leaving towards a 'being beyond', a 'more-than-l-'this 'indefinite being beyond this ‘more-the-I', being held as fit for being venerated, awed, believed in and depended upon. Accordingly, the genetic or the so-called scientific theory about the evolution of religion should not be unmindful of the intuitive basis. In fact, the intuition-theory and the evolution-theory have both their importance and usefulness in the history of religious progress. Evolution does not mean continuous and successive new creations out of nothing; it always implies a development or amplification of what already is, -may be, as potentiality or implicit possibility; evolution thus signifies a constitutive permanent element and a contingent element of change as well. The instinct-theory of religionin however vague a manner it may do,- affirms that man has a native sense of the divinity with its four attributes. The business of the evolution school to show how the history of a religion has been continuously bringing out the inner and the real significance of that intuitive idea of God.
"Religion is intimately wrapped up”, says W. Wallace, "with the tillage of the fields the pasture of the flocks, the rules and modes of wed-lock, the customs of the market, with sanitary rules, with the treatment of disease". In fact, the religious position of a man is connected with his whole psychical nature more or less intimately and is in this respect distinguishable from a particular theory of his, regarding, say, a particular physical or chemical phenomena. The religious consciousness is immediate and involves a commanding persuasion; in the words of Schilling, it means, “What is at once heroism, faith, fidelity to yourself and to God, - a trust and confidence in the divine which excludes or abolishes all choice". This signifies that one's religion or theory of God is essentially a conviction, -not merely a credulity nor even a critical knowledge of facts but rather a realisation of a law, in which he lives, acts, and has his being. This inseparable connection between god-consciousness and the consciousness of one's own essential nature explains the best results we have of the rationalisation of a religion or of the original primitive notion of God. Kant's critical researches led him to find out that some of the most essential matters of life, for their solution in accordance with the principle of practical reason, pointed to a regulative law, nderlying and unifying them and that this law was identifiable with

Page #15

BHATTACHARYYA : THE BASIC IDEA OF GOD
89 God, who is thus in a very real sense immanent in the spiritual nature of man. God is no doubt conceived in most religions as an external being "Something beyond the cloud, some one beyond nature, the Great One who breaks the law and works his will for his own." "There is no denial also that this transcendent God with some of the primitive people is identified with the Law-giver, the priest, prophet of the Seer. But with the progress of the process of rationalisation, all this came only to mean that God is more than the perishing individual, a reality, greater than ones empirical self. Religion in the process of rationalisation is thus a progress from the objective to the subjective consciousness of God, the former, characterising generally the primitive and the less advanced outlook and the latter representing the more advanced, "finding the voice of God mainly in the inner shrine of the heart" (E. Caird). So far as the God-consciousness was concerned, the school of Schlimacher did away with all dualism between Verstand and Kernnufi, the gulf between the pure and the practical reasons and found in the essential emotional nature of man, the explanation of the religious sense.
For the discovery of the true grounds of religious consciousness and for the matter of that, of the true nature of God in his aforesaid four-fold aspects, we are thus led to fall back upon the true nature of man. Now, undeniably man is a social being, he feels that there are other beings who are essentially like him; that, in other words, there are spiritual realities other than but similar to him. Even the primitive man has the sense that he is not religious by himself, that his God is not exclusively his, that he has not the liberty to choose his own God, nor the exclusive claim to enjoy his blessings alone. The nature of man is thus inseparably related to that of others like him. If then rationalisation requires that God is to be sought in the nature of man, there are apparent psychological reasons for an individuals looking upon his community as something divine. The State, for example, was looked upon as Divinity by some peoples and for similar reasons the religious Brotherhood, the Church, was recognised as God by most of the social religions. The most pronounced and unambiguous form of acceptance of a collection of man as the sole Divinity is that introduced by Auguste Comte in which the supreme God is identified with Humanity, whose worship is to be performed by an organised priesthood and Church through an elaborate system of rituals.
While it may be admitted that all rationalised religions must be based on a recognition of the other realities, separate from, yet similar to the individual, it is never right to obliterate the individual and fix upon the 'other element as the sole real Divinity. For, the other

Page #16

JAIN JOURNAL: Vol-XXXIII, No. 3 January 1999 consciousness' is not the whole of one's consciousness; if a person has the apprehension in him, of persons other than him, he has also the consciousness of himself as an indubitable direct reality. This consciousness of the individual self as the primary reality asserts itself in a prominent manner in the religious theories and practices of a people. It is surmised that the practice of Sacrifice as a religious act was due to a sense of union or communion between a group of men and their Diety manifesting itself in the social banquet in which all the members of the community took their part. Sacrifice was thus due to the religious consciousness in its social aspect. But, on the other hand, the practice of Magic also in some form can be traced in all primitive religions. Magic consisted in attempts to interpret the past, to foretell the future, to cure diseases, to remove evils, to bring about health and prosperity and so on. It was believed that the powers of the magician to do these acts were due to his acquisition of some sort of control over nature. These powers were the magician's own individual attainments and were exercised by him alone through mysterious formulas and acts. The magical acts, it has been surmised by some, were not wholly fanciful acts but some of them at least were certainly due to the magician's careful observation of some natural phenomena. Whatever that might have been Magic, as distinguished from Sacrifice, consisted in setting up an individual's strictly private relation to the divine powers of nature and in divinising the individual man, so to say, in some manner. Comte's religion of Humanity had few adherents outside France; and Huxley characterised it as 'Chatholicism minus Christianity'. Humanity as a whole or a collective body has only a notional reality and the attribution to it of the four-fold divine features of power, apprehension, omniscience and blessedness can only be figurative. The individuals are real and each one of them can be accepted as the God. The fact of there being a number of individuals having similar natures may determine the nature of an individual in certain manners but this does not invest the totality of the community with any real living reality or negate the reality of the individual altogether. Comte's God was thus an unreal abstraction and could not accordingly command the heart-felt veneration of any truly religiousminded people. Another serious defect from which the so-called religion of Humanity suffers was that it identified divinity with the ordinary experimental nature of man, Comte was right in finding his only God in the nature of man but erred in holding that a man or a collection of men as finite beings and subject to all the ills, infirmities, misfortunes and limitations of a worldly life could nevertheless be regarded as God. God in a rationalised religion is certainly man, -or for the matter of that, any being having the principles of life and consciousness in
90

Page #17

BHATTACHARYYA : THE BASIC IDEA OF GOD him; but divinity attaches, not to the ephemeral and the transitory aspect of the creatures nature but to what is eternal and fundamental in it.
A word of caution is necessary again when recognising the divinity in the essential nature of man, an ordinary animal suffering from the vicissitudes of the ordinary life, is not God; it is only his pure nature to which divinity can be attributed; and in this sense, it is but natural to look upon the high souled beings, – the super-ordinary persons who by their self-culture and self-development have realised their pure selves, as divine beings. This is done in most of the positive religions and is justifiable. But this would not warrant one to confine Godhood within the limited number of the prophets or messiahs of those religions. We must, on the other hand, recognise that every living being is essentially pure and has the capacity of fully developing its own nature. We must recognise, in other words, that every conscious creature is a God in potentiality and that when thus developed to perfection, this potential God in a living being appears in its true light, i.e., as a full-fledged God with his four-fold attributes.
The basic idea of God in all religions is thus one in which he is characterised by the four-fold features of infinite 'power', infinite 'apprehension', infinite 'knowledge and infinite “joy'. This fundamental God-idea when rationalised is found to be attributable not to any external transcendent being, but to the essential nature of every living being. The central feature in a conceivable universal religion is thus the recognition of the fundamental nature of all conscious beings, high or low, as divine.
It would be interesting to see how Jainism which is ordinarily dubbed as atheistic, fully recognises divinity of a rationalised religion, as described above. God in Jainism is not an outside being, creating the world. Divinity is to be attributed to the nature of man, as suggested by the Comtian school; but unlike Comte, Jainism refuses to recognise God in the empirical man; it holds that man and, for the matter of that, - every animal is a divine potentiality, so that when perfected and fully developed, this potentiality is realised as the true God with the four-fold glories of infinite Power, Knowledge, Apprehension and Joy, - 'Ananta-catustaya' as they are called by the Jainas.

Page #18

ESSENTIALS OF JAINA METAPHYSICS
AND EPISTEMOLOGY
HARI MOHAN BHATTACHARYA The contributions of the Jaina mind to Indian Culture are at once immense and outstanding. The Jain literature and Art, Religion and Ethics, Science and Metaphysics, Logic and Epistemology still pose indeed an alluring problem for explores of whom there have been a few in India and still fewer abroad. Among the continental scholars of Jainism, Professors Jacobi, Schubring and Winternitz deserve the high honour of pioneers in the field. Drs. S. C. Vidyabhusan, P.L. Vaidya and A.N. Upadhyaya are perhaps among the top-ranking Jains of India. Deplorable and disappointing laments are repeated to this day, and there is no knowing if these laments will be silenced as to the neglect and apathy towards Jaina Culture, in spite of the fact that there is no dearth of finance among the Jainas, nor any dearth of scholars still in India who might take up the task of exploration of the buried treasures of Jaina Culture. What is really wanting is the warmth and enthusiasm among its votaries.
I indulgence from my readers, however, for brevity of my treatment of this comprehensive subject due to the limits within which I must have to keep myself for a comparatively elaborate treatment bringing out the rich and manifold implications of the subject I would like to refer my readers to my book “Jaina Logic and Epistemology” published by the Calcutta University.
1. Metaphysical portion of the Jaina. Jaina metaphysic is dualistic or rather pluralistic Realism. The entire existence, accor to the Jaina, is divided into two hemispheres, of Alokākāśa and the Lokākāśa. The Alokākāśa is peopled by the siddhas or Arhans who have attained mokṣa and who are thus beyond the sphere of metaphysical and logical speculation. Lokākāśa is the abode of the Samsārins who have to philosophise about its contents and have to formulate their conceptions as to the Being and knowledge of these contents and thus we have metaphysic and Logic of the Jainas. The Alokākāśa or the Supramundane sphere being transcendental and a logical in character, all philosophy, metaphysic and Logic necessarily limited to the contents and their knowledge that obtain within the lokākāśa or the world of human experience.

Page #19

93
BHATTACHARYA : JAINA METAPHYSICS AND EPISTEMOLOGY
The contents of the world of our experience are divided into Jivas and Ajīvas, souls and non-souls. The souls are svaprakāśa, selfluminous, and svasamvedana, self-knowing or self-conscious. The nonsouls are jaļa aprakāśa or unconscious. The souls are independent of one another and are a plurality, and so are non-souls a plurality. Both the souls and non-souls are self-existent reals. They are not created or evolved by any higher being called God. Jaina metaphysic is thus dualistic or rather pluralistic Realism. Each and every one of these reals, conscious or unconscious is never static or immobile, but is always pariņāmi or evolvent. But nevertheless in spite of its constant change or pariņāma it keeps up its stability or character as an identical substance in and through its changes or pariņāmas. It is thus a pariņāma nitya as Umāsvāti puts it, utpāda-vyaya-dhrauya-yuktam sat. The sat or real is characterized by utpādaor origin and vyaya or annihilation. It does not originate out of nothing, nor does it lose its identity of substance in this annihilation, but it always has the third characteristic of dhrauvya or stability, for otherwise it will forego its character as a sator real. Changes or pariņāmas are indeed going on in its life, but in the midst of its changes it retains its identity through its character as dhrauvya, permanence or stability. The guņas or qualities and paryāyas or modifications that originate and are annihilated are replenished so as not to lose its character as sator real by its dhrawya aspect. The Jaina metaphysic is thus distinctly realistic. Now the souls are conscious, and the non-souls are unconscious, one having nothing in common with the other. Here, as in all forms of Realism, explanation of knowledge, of how the soul knows the non-soul is a problem. Descartes dualistic realism in Western philosophy has offered Interactionism to explain knowledge by the mind of matter on physiological ground of a hypothetical pinealgland, and we all know how the flimsiness of this explanation has led his followers to introduce divine agency, Spinoza having recourse to 900 as Absolute substance whose parallel attributes are mind and matter consciousness and coleism and heibriz to his hypothesis of preestablished Harmony whereby God, or Master-minded who is the sufficient reason for effecting the harmony or knowledge relation between the two otherwise unrelated entities of mind and matter. This intervention of divine agency in explaining the problem of knowledge is evidently a mere sueterfuge, and has come down to us as a pseudo explanation of the relation between mind and matter in which all knowledge consists, and has been criticised as deus ex machina explanations of the knowledge problem. Hegel in order to get out of this untrasse has reduced mind and matter to a common spiritual determination by showing that both mind and matter have their origin

Page #20

JAIN JOURNAL: Vol-XXXIII, No. 3 January 1999
from the One Absolute spirit a God, and their difference is only a form of duality and not a rigid insoluble dualism. Thus the legacy of Dualism left by Descartes in modern Western Philosophy was reduced to Absolute Monism by Hegel who claimed monistic explanation of the relation between mind and matter which alone, he thinks, is the proper explanation of knowledge.
94
But the Jaina with all candour and freedom of thought, bases his findings on the headrock of commonsense and experience which should not be behind and flouted by any speculative bias and sows the problem of knowledge as it presents itself to his mind as something crystal clear from experience (pratiti-siddha), As I have understood the Jaina position, he has evinced a unique departure of thought in his explanation of knowledge consistently with his dualism between Jiva and Ajiva, soul and non-soul. From the very native of parināmitva of both soul and non-soul, the non-soul modifies itself into the paryaya of being known, and the soul modifies itself into the paryaya of knowing. This parināma of the soul and the non-soul is, according to the Jaina, gives us the real explanation of knowledge of matter by the mind, of the non-soul by the soul. The aparināmi or static real, conscious or unconscious cannot aford us the paricchittior knowledge which results only from the nature parināms, evolution or change in the ever evolving paryayas of the soul and the non-soul. The dualism of Descartes and his followers in Western philosophy could not be solved because of their static view of mind and matter which were diametrically opposed to each other. We notice here that this Evolutionary Realism of the Jaina is indeed a unique explanation of knowledge within the framewests of dualistic metaphysic which presented a stumbling block to the European thinkers. Hegel's nomistic Idealism reduces matter to mind against the palpable difference of mind and matter revealed in experience, pratiti, and thus offends against common sense and experience. Bertrand Russell's reduction of mind to a feeling of organisation is opposite offence against realism which he himself profess, and unknowingly glides into the materialism of a worse type. The Jaina true to his dualistic metaphysics offers a better explanation of the knowledge-problem keeping himself within the bounds of common sense and experience when he thinks that mind and matter, or in his language, soul and non-soul enter into knowledge-relation, by evolving into the paryaya of knowing and paryaya of being known' respectively.
2. Another unique contribution of the Jaina is his outstanding solution of the relation between the soul to its knowledge. Jñāna or knowledge is to him, in a relation of identity the essence with the soul.

Page #21

BHATTACHARYA : JAINA METAPHYSICS AND EPISTEMOLOGY
95
Kundakundācārya, who is, perhaps, the oldest of the Jaina epistemologists and stands as a link between the canonical and later classical ways of thinking, remarks in his Pravacanasāra; 'jo jānādi soņāņam;' he who knows is knowledge. He means to say that knowledge to be of real significance must be regarded as identical in essence with the soul, which in knowing only modifies itself into knowledge; there is no separation possible of any kind between the knower and its knowledge, the soul which is partņāmi cannot be regarded as something different from its pariņāma. Knowledge as parņāma is the soul knowing.
Now this may be said to be the keynote in solving the problem of knowledge as such, which we find has baffled the Naiyāyika, and the Mimāmsaka who have taken the separatist view of the relation between the soul and its knowledge, the Advaitist who has taken a dubious view and the Buddhists in general who have denied one of the relation viz. mind as a reality which ought to enter into the knowledge relation. To the Nalyāyika knowledge is not the essential but an additional quality of the soul as a static reality to which knowledge comes and goes according to the presence or absence of the collection of the conditions (karaņasāmagri) of knowledge and he goes to the extreme of supposing that since knowledge is the source of karma and therefore of all sin, it should better be eliminated to attain mokṣa which is thus the swimming back of the soul unto the Mimāmsaka fares no better in explaining the relation of knowledge to the soul when he described it as an avasthā or state that comes and goes just like the kundalāvasthā or the ārjavāvasthā in the body of a snake in its own character. The Advaitist errs, the Jaina thinks, in so far as in the Advaita theory the soul which is free from all activity and process, knowledge is not due to the soul but only to the antaḥ karana vrittis which have in themselves nothing like the character of illumination of its object for the antahkarana, though an internal sense is not better than the outer sense which is jaţa or unillumining in reality. The Advaitist tries to save himself from this difficulty by his supposition of the soul as sākşi or transcendental witness to all intellectual activities. But the point remains that as a witness it cannot lend its illuming character to knowledge of objects nor is his position improved by calling to his aid the principle of adhyāsa the empirical application of the transcendental power of Avidyāwhich rules the realm of empirical knowledge, when he declares anatmamatmopacarat. The admittedly anātmatva of the antaḥkaraña changed into anything of the ātmā by mere magic of Adhyāsa and as such the antahkarana jiva by nature, really fails to account for the illumination or knowledge of objects. Here also we notice the same inefficiency to explain knowledge owing to his failure to see that knowledge is always by the soul and occurs in the soul if it

Page #22

96
JAIN JOURNAL : Vol-XXXIII, No. 3 January 1999
occurs anywhere as its own modification and knowledge shares in the illumining character of the soul of which it is a modification. As the Jaina repeatedly tells us that knowledge is soul in knowing. So in so far as the Jaina insists that soul and in an intimate and in separable relation to each other, and that knowledge is both self-revealing and also revealing its object as a parināma or evolution of the self-luminous soul he...clears of the difficulties of the separatist view or dubious view of the other Indian systems of thought as noted above, and thus seems to have struck the keynote of the proper relation that should subsist between the soul and its knowledge.
Apart from the above mentioned fundamental problem of Logic, the Jaina has contributed many others which bring to the forefront their dialectical acumen in contrast with those of the orthodox logical thinkers of contemporary India and these together make up that glorious history of Indian dialectical thought which any country may feel proud of.
3. In the sphere of systemic logic Siddhasena Divākara's contributions seem to be the most outstanding. His Nyāyāvatāra and Sammatitarka Prakarana reveal the height of logical thought and still stand unparalleled. Compelled as we are to confine our statements within certain limits we would do well to mention only a few of their outstanding logical and epistemological contributions to the dialectical thought of India. The Jaina divides Pramāņa or valid knowledge into Pratyakşa and Parokşa: Pratyakşa with the Jaina is that form of direct valid knowledge which marks itself out from the pratyakşa of the orthodox Indian systems by the very fact that it underlines their common concept of Indriya Sannikarsa or constant of the senses with the object of perception. The Jaina with his fundamental stand that all Pramāna is constituted by Svaparabhasijñāna points out that it is a knowledge whose character is that it always illumines itselfand its other, the object, it does not require any element which is other than conscious. The senses and the object in perceptual knowledge being jaţa came to have any direct determining part to play in the art of perception, though they may have a secondary roles in the completion of such knowledge. Manikyanandi tells us that pratyakşam is Visadam as apposed to Parokşam which is avisadam Its character of Vaisadiem consists in its distinctness and clearness due to immediacy. Immediacy to him means its independence of any other condition. All the varieties
such as samarana anumāna and Pratyavijñāna. lack this independence to ensure its validity depending, as they all do, upon some other factors which enter into them for their validity. This contention in their distinction between Pratyaksa and Parohksa which

Page #23

BHATTACHARYA: JAINA METAPHYSICS AND EPISTEMOLOGY
the Jaina carries out in a marvellously novel fashion at once brings out their important departure from the stereotyped orthodox way of treatment of the same problem. The inquisitive reader would do well to refer for this problem to the outstanding discussions given by Siddhasena, Abhayadeva Suri and Hemacandra, embodied in my work "Jaina Logic and Epistemology."
In his treatment of the problem of Anumana, the logical agreement of the Jaina appears in a bold relief. The vyāpti or Avinabhava, as the Jaina more often calls it, is the inseparable relation between the Hetu and Sadhya, familiar with the orthodox thinkers. But the Jaina recognises the same relation to include within its compass the part played by the Pakṣa and he reviews the entire situation of inferential knowledge and insists that the vyapti to be a really effective instrument for inference cannot afford to ignore the Pakṣa which is also inseparably related to the vyapti, the veritable logical basis of inference, and thus anticipates in a remarkable manner the nineteenth century logical savant of the West, namely Hegel, who, in his 'Principles of Ligic' Part II has made it clear that the minor term in a syllogism has no less to contribute to the completion of the relation, than the major and the middle, which the fuller understanding of the syllogism rests. I must mention in this connection that uha or tarka, which has been by passed by the orthodox writers, has been discussed with meticulous case by the Jaina who by his well-reasoned arguments has shown that uha or tarka is the real means of knowledge, whereby vyāpti or abinabhava or inseparable relation between the hetu and the sadhya has to be reached. It is indeed a treat to go through the Jaina argument here for eleminating, according to other pramāņas, the Vaiseṣika, contention that the knowledge of vyapti is in the last analysis, the result of pratyakṣa of the positive and negative instances and the Naiyāyika position that the knowledge of vyāpti is obtained by the combined acts of partyakṣa and Tarka and his conclusion is that ūha or tarka is an independent pramāņa whose content is the knowledge of vyapti on which anumāna rests (cf. Pramāṇa-mīmāmsā of Hema candra, Sūtra-5 ch II).
97
Anekāntavāda and Saptabhangi Naya
Without going further into other details of Jaina metaphysics logical contributions we would do well to satisfy ourselves with the most outstanding Jaina doctrine of Anekāntavāda and its logical deduction of Saptabhangi-naya, the theory of sevenfold prediction which distinguishes Jaina philosophy from that of the other Indian systems of thought. Nay, it may be said to be the unique contribution to world

Page #24

JAIN JOURNAL: Vol-XXXIII, No. 3 January 1999 philosophy. As already indicated in the beginning of our paper, the Jaina is a professed realist depending upon the deliverances of common sense and experience. Experience reveals that a real is manifold in its facets or characters which it is impossible for experience to exhaust. So he begins by pointing out that it would be wrong to view the real absolutely in terms of one characteristic. The immediate target of his attack is on the one hand the Advaitist absolutism of the one spiritual real the atman, static and immutable in essence and on the other absolute phenomenalism of the Buddhist to whom change to the only reality. Each of these angles of thought is an Ekanta or one extreme, and thus fails of its purpose of delivering us the truly concrete real which is neither purely static and immutable nor is pure change without the background of the changeless. The Jaina goes even deeper into the question and avers that the real may be regarded from one stand point as existent and from another, as non-existent, that we may...the real as conditions and circumstance under which we view it and the Jaina has given us these conditions and circumstances which are four in number, viz. the substance (dravya) of the real, its state (bhāva), the time (kāla) and the space (desa) in which it exists. From each of these conditions and circumstances the same real will be regarded as existent and will be regarded as non-existent from the condition and circumstances other than the given one. Similarly the Jaina will regard the real as sāmānya or the universal from one standpoint and viseșa or particular from another standpoint, it will be regarded as nitya or eternal from one standpoint and anitya or noneternal from another. In one of word the Jaina is Chary of committing himself to one-sidedness in his view the real, for the real for sooth, is aneka-dharmatmaka or manifold in character. The Jaina contends, very much in the same spirit as the modern realist and pragmatist that in spite of the privative or relative character of the specific concepts or judgments, the Vedantist, the Sankhyist, the Nyaya-vaiseṣika thinkers and the Buddhists have each in his own way taken specific concepts or judgements, to represent the whole or absolute truth and have been led to the supposition that because a thing has one definable character it cannot have any other, that the formal principle of Identity or of contradiction has invulnerable rigidity alike in the realms of thought and things. An unbiased examination of facts, however, reveals the contrary. Each object of our experience to a home of apparently contradictory characters, a harbour of opposites which are governed not by the principle of contradiction, but only by principle of contrariety rendering them predicable of the reality under alternative conditions. Hence the Jaina directs it dialectic still against what William James calls "Vicious Intellectualism or "Abstractionism", as exhibited by each
98

Page #25

BHATTACHARYA : JAINA METAPHYSICS AND EPISTEMOLOGY
99
of the Advaitist, the Sankhya, the Nyāya-Vaiseșikas, and the Buddhist in so far as each of them uses concepts privatwely. L.S. confines them to one or other specific aspects of the concrete reality which is finitely rich (Aneka-dharmātmaka). To express the Jaina stand point in the language of Prof. Perry, the American Realist, is "The world may be truly conceived as permanent and unified since it is such in a certain respect : But this should not lead us, as it has led certain intellectualists, to suppose that the world is therefore not changing and plural. We must not identify our world with one conception of it. In its concrete richness it leads itself to many conceptions. And the same is true of the least thing in the world. It has many aspects none of which is exhaustive of it. It may be taken in many relations and orders and be given different houses accordingly" (Prof. Perry, Present Philosophical Tendencies p. 228). The Jaina has pointed out that any particular judgment confining us to any one particular aspect of the reality, such as pure sat or existent, nitya or eternal, dravya or Substance, pure paryāya or modification, or change, pure Samanya or universal, Visesa or particular, as against the opposite alternative aspect of which it is capable, will be sheer abstraction or Nayabhāsa as he calls it. The reality is in its proper character is on the other hand is Aneka-dharmātmaka or mainfold in its character. But a question may be raised, if it is mainfold and therefore in exhaustible in our estimate of it, our knowledge of it in its true character is impossible, and we must turnout again.
But the Jaina has guarded us against agnosticism or scepticism as absolutism of knowledge and has pointed to Relativism as the proper attitude to knowledge. He has argued that we can arrive at knowledge of the reality by adopting any one of its mainfold aspects and developing what he calls Saptabhanginaya out of that one chosen aspect. We can effectively establish this Saptabhanginaya or the doctrine of the Sevenfold judgement neither more, nor less, which is the logical and dialectical way of expressing and understanding the nature of reality. Since any one of the seven possible judgements cannot claim to stand for no more than one of the many possible aspects, its relativistic character is best expressed by appending the term syāt which means possibly and hence the Jaina has designated his doctrine of Truth and Reality and their expression by the significant term Syādvāda. The underlying implication of Syādvāda apparently is that Reality is not unknown and unknowable, is not unifold, but manifold, it is not a unity, but a plurality, that but that plural and manifold reality is best knowable in terms of the sevenfold judgment, saptabhanginaya

Page #26

JAIN JOURNAL: Vol-XXXIII, No. 3 January 1999
An orientation of the Jaina position from the stand point of modern life reveals that it is at once a check to Agnosticism and nihilism and offers the doctrine of alternative truths in the sphere of thinking, and thus claims the credit of having resolved the present day conflict of ideologies the source of hatred and war that threatens the very existence of man and his civilization and culture.
100

Page #27

STATUS OF WOMEN IN JAINISM IN KARNATAKA
KAMALA HAMPANA While dealing with a subject of the status of women in Jainism, I have not attempted to analyse their position by taking the source material from primordial canonical texts. Since such attempts are made earlier, confining myself to Karaņāțaka, I have selected only historical characters, who prominently figure in the insciptions and record their achievements. After a sample survey of selective and representative inscriptions of different periods and different areas, the folowing points are observed :
1. Normally equality of opportunity was not denied to women, both
in social and religious sphere. Jain society is by and large, a patriarchal society with the sole exception of the south Kanara Jains in Karnataka, where the matriarchy was prevalent, i.e., the successor of the family would be the son-in-law, the husband of the daughter. But even in other patriarchal families, women have their legal rights; the unmarried daughters and sisters are entitled for a proportionate share.
2. Female infanticide or neglect of femaled children is not pratised
in Jaina community; child marriage was most unusual; inspite of the preference to the male child with the usual dictum of Suputraha Kuladipakaha-a good son is the lamp of the family, female child is not discarded.
3. Widowhood was not a taboo to deteriorate the position of women
from participating in auspicious occasions. Widows were treated with equal status and respect and they were not tonsured or asked to wear yellow cloth.
4. The ethical discipline or the lay doctrines prescribed such as
the Vratas- the aņuvratas, guņa vratas, sikşā-vratas are the same for both male and female. Administering of sallekhanā also follows a common methodology.
5.
The custom of the sati was never encouraged, self-immolation is forbidden. Out of thousands of Jain inscriptions, there are only two exceptional cases of Jaina women resorting to the act of sati, to burn one-self with the husband's corpse. Gundamabbe, own sister and co-wife of Attimabble, followed the pyre of her

Page #28

102
JAIN JOURNAL: Vol-XXXIII, No. 3 January 1999 husband Nāgadeva in the year ofabout 980 A.D. But the author Ranna, poet-laureate, who has recorded the incident, refers to the lady who preferred to live and boldly face life as a mahā-sati, lady of greater virtue, thereby suggesting that nobler is she who survives to serve more. Therefore the poet Ranna (C.E. 993) does not subscribe to the custom of sati. another incident of Jain women observing the act of sati comes from the period of Vijayanagara (EC. V111 (BLR) Sorab 104, 106, 134: A.D. 1354).
Poet Pampa (A.D. 941) appears to have endorsed the idea of the spouses dying together simultaneously, but it does not suggest that he subscribes to the custom of sati.
7. Proper education was accorded to women on par with the male.
Rşbhadev, the first Tirthankara, had set in ideal model to the society by himself educating Brāhmi and Sundari, his daughters in paleography and mathematics. Jain women stand next to Parsee, Jew and Christian women in the extent of literacy.
Kumārapāla, king of Gujarat with proper advice of HemacandraĀcārya, one of the greatest of Jain monks, unconditionally agreed to repeal the law of annexing the property of families to the state where there are no male issues. A similar position prevailed in Karnataka where from the beginning no royal dynasty ever thought of superseeding the property of families without male issues.
9. Even though polygamy is extolled, monogamy was the practice
more prevelant in Jain society.
10. The adept Jinasena has narrated the story of Sulocanā who
chose her partner Jayakumāra alias Meghasena in the svayamvara (Adipurāņam : canto 43, ślokas 310-25). However the freedom ofchoosing the spouse did not become popular, but
it is not forbidden. 11. a. Though intercaste marriage is not barred, generally it is not
encouraged. There are instances of such marriages recorded in the medieval inscriptions. Sāntaladevi, crownqueen of Vişnuvardhana, Hoysaļa king was an ardent Jain, whereas
her husband was a proselytized Vaisnava. b. Mācikabbe, mother of the renowned queen consort
śāntaladevi, was a Jain and her husband Mārasingayya was a devotee of Siva.

Page #29

HAMPANA: STATUS OF WOMEN IN JAINISM IN KARNATAKA
103 c. Candramouļi, a minister of Hoysaļa kingdom, was a Saiva
and his wife Acaladevi was a Jain, she also has built a Jain
temple at Śravanabelagoļa like śāntaladevi. d. Nāga-gāvundi, a Saivite and head of Māheśvaragaņa, was
the consort of Sinda-gāvuņda of Viragrāma, a bee at the lotus feet of Jinendra; the couple unanimously decided to
grant endowments to god Siddheśvara. 12. There are a few more instances of similar nature. In such families
peace and happiness prevailed, and in matters of religion or rituals, women had all freedom to worship the god of her choice, is something commendable. The inscriptions of Śravanabeļagola and Shimoga endorse the success of such inter-caste marr ( Epigraphia Carnatica, vol. 11 (revised). Nos. 161, 162, 173, 174, 176 and 444, 571; EC. Vol. VII-1 (BLR) Shimoga. No. 39.A.D.1122).
13. Women were the safe custodians of art, architecture, culture
and religion. Hundreds of charters have recorded the instances of construction and renovation of Basadis, and liberal grants extended to their perpetual maintainace caused by women.
14.
Jain women were trained in performing arts like dance and music and they were allowed to give public performances if they so like it. Bācaladevi, a consort of Bhujabala-Ganga-Permmāạidevi, a king of Mandali-nād-Thousand, was an expert dancer and muscian who was rewarded with the grant of a village for her excellent performance (EC. VII-I (BLR) Shimoga, No. 97. A.D. 1113]. śāntaladevi, senior queen consort of Vişnuvardhana, the renowned Hoysala king, was considered the goddess of learning personified. It is believed that she was the figure dancer and a model for the bracket figures of the Belūr temple. Jain women were never afraid of the inevitable death. They faced it so boldly that they had the courage to submit on their own and galdly accept the vow of sallehaņā. Inscriptions have vividly described the instances of women who are sobre in the hours of final submission. The percentage of women is slightly higher than men in accepting the rite of sallekhanā. The Upāsikās (Śrāvikās) lady votaries strictly adhered to the four types of charities prescribed for the housesholder; the friars and nuns were happily served the food, the destitute had a sigh of relief, the deceased could get timely medicine and religious
15.
16.

Page #30

104
JAIN JOURNAL : Vol-XXXIII, No. 3 January 1999 minded had the desired text including the precious Dhavalāţika with them-thanks to the philonthropic Jain women. Thus charity was a synonym for Jaina woman. The priority for the charity is their own choice. Palm-leaf manuscripts of Jaina classics were made available because of the Jaina women who took initiative to get them copied whenever required.
17.
Religion was their main plank and they were inspired by the ideals set by the great masters : to cause temples, to build tanks, dig wells, construct feeding houses and erect the mānasthambhas, Jaina pillars of eminence.
18.
Jain women of royal families were also trained in the art of war and horse riding; they were allowed to wage war. There are instances of Jain women leading the army to the battlefield and even crushing a heavy defeat on enemy. Attimabbe (A.D. 980) had successfully overcome the hostile army; Sāviabbe (A.D. 970) fought bravely against the formiddable opponent, riding on her trained horse flourishing a sword. Rani Abbakkadevi had defeated the Portuguese armada and Jaina women also efficiently ruled the kingdom or principality; they were county sheriffs. RāņiCennabhairādevi ruled her kingdom as the only woman Mahā-Mandaleśvari in Karnataka (A.D.. 1542-69). Jakkiyabbe (A.D. 870-918) was known for her bravery and she was the official head of a group of villages in Nāgara Khaņda-70. The contribution of Jaina women to the cultural heritage of Karnataka is substantial and remarkable both in quality and quantity. In brief, Jainism has given greater attention and freedom to women. Illustrations of some Jaina women recorded in inscriptions are given below:
19.
1. Nāgāvuņņi Jakkiyabbe (A.D. 870-918)
During the reign of the Rāștrakūta king Kannara-Deva-II alias Krişņa (878-914) and Indra-III (914-29), Kaliviţtarasa, a mahā-sāmanta, a governor entitled to the pañca-mahāśabda, the five big drums or the five great musical instruments (a horn, a tabor, a conch-shell, a kettledrum and a gong) of far spreading sound, was ruling the Banavāsi 12,000 principality. He was of the Kāļkadevaysara-anvaya, clan. Sattara-Nāgārjuna, a sub-ordinate of the Rāştrakūtas, holding the office of Nal-gāvunda of the Nāgara khanda-seventy, while fighting the hostile under the orders of Kaliviţtarasa, his immediate officer, died in the war. Krişna-II, the king, favourable considering the valour and

Page #31

HAMPANA: STATUS OF WOMEN IN JAINISM IN KARNATAKA
105 loyalty of Nāgārjuna, gave the grade of Nāgāvundike to Jakkiyabbe, spouse of the deceased.
When Jakkiyabbe was holding the office of Nālgāvuņda, Nandavura Kaliga was holding the office of Perggade to Kodangeyūr-seventy and the three hundred granted Avutavūr to Jakkiyabbe as promised. Jakkiyabbe, in giving away the dues of the Nālgāvunda in Avutaūr to Jakkiyabbe an account of the Nāgarakhanda-seventy, granted four mattal of rice-land, in Jakkili for the temple.
Jakkiyabbe had possessed the best prabhusakti, skill in ability for good government, jinendra-śāsana-bhakte, faithful to the Nirgrantha creed. She was rejoicing in her beauty. She was protecting well the principality of Nāgarakhanda-70, though a woman. She was known for her heroic bravery.
When everything was going on well in her favour, bodily disease having made inroads, Jakkiyabbe decided that the joy of every day worldly life was vapid. She responded to the code of conduct prescribed in the Jaina scripture for the lay votaries that one should face the inevitable death with all willingness. She had niḥ-pratikāra-rujā, a terminal illness from which death was imminant, one of the four situations in which sallekhanā can be performed. Hence Jakkiyabbe allowed no time to relax or waste; she sent words for her priyātmaje, dear daughter. Making over to her daughter all the legitimate property she owned, Jakkiyabbe freed herself from the entanglement of the chain of desire. She abdicated everything, left her home, reached the Bandaņike, a pilgrimage centre of Jainism. She entered the temple with fixed devotion, approached the pontiff and prayed to administer her the vow of sallekhanā. She performed the vow and abandoned her mortals in meditation in the year A.D. 918.
It so happened that the office of the Nāl-gāvundike chief of a district, of Nāgarakhanda-seventy, the district comprising seventy towns, was continued to be held by the members of the Jakkiyabbe family for another four generations uninterrupted. Sattara-Nāgārjuna's great grand son was named after him as Sattara-Nāgārjunayya. Sattara was the family name, sattaras were genealogically related to the Sāntaras of Sāntalige-thousand, also a Jain dynasty. SattaraNāgāriunavya was ruling Nagarakhanda-seventy during the reign of Jayasimha (1015-42), the Kalyāņa Cālukya emperor. Manneya Nāgavarma, son of Sattara-Nāgārjunayya, while fighting the enemy was severely wounded on the battlefield and gained the world of gods. The genealogy of Jakkiyabbe continued to maintain the status of the dynasty.

Page #32

106
JAIN JOURNAL: Vol-XXXIII, No. 3 January 1999 2. Sāviyabbe-the warrior (C. 980 A.D.)
Amemorial stone of about tenth century, near the Bāhubali temple on the small hill also called Candragiri at Śravanabelagola, though the latter portion of it is damaged, has registered an historically important episode. It has brilliantly captured the intrepidity ofa Jaina lady.
Sāviyabbe accompanied her husband to the battlefield and fell fighting by his side. The incident seems to have been taken place at Bagiyūr in about C.E.980. It is very interesting to note that the undated inscription recording the incident has also the sculpture representing Sāviyabbe riding on a horse and flourishing a sword, with a man, apparently aiming at her with some weapon held at the level of his waist is sitting on an elephant opposite to Sāviyabbe.
The incomplete and partially erassed charter successfully portrays the necessary facts about the life of Sāviyabbe and her parents Bāyika and Jābayye. Bāyika, a warrior of eminence, had faithfully followed his master in his war operations and thus had spread his fame. Māduvara and Doyilamma were the two elder brothers of Sāviyabbe alias Sāyibbe.
Lokavidyadhara alias Udaya-vidyādhara, son of Dhora, was the husband of Sāviyabbe. Evidently Vidyādhara, as the very name suggests, was a scion of Ganga dynasty. Vidyādhara is a common and acclaimed name and a title of the Gangas. Vidyādhara, one of the great-grand-sons of Būtugua-II and the only son of ArumuļidevaGāvabbarasi, had the name of Rājāditya alias Lokavidyadhara.
However, the epigraph under discussion has registered the attainments of Sāviyabbe who became celebrated in the world as an abode of wisdom and a collection of dharma. Are there any women who can be compared with her and with Sitä? When it is said that the world-renowned Loka-vidyadhara, son of Dhora, liberal to the learned, was her husband, can any other person be compared with her in glory? Know ye, that in the śrāvaka-dharma, duties of lay persons, Sāviyabbe was the celebrated Śrāvaki, lay woman, Revati herself, there being no other to compare with her, in wifely conduct Sītā herself, in beauty Devaki herself, in greatness Arundhati herself, in pure devotion to Jinendra, Jinaśāsanadevatā, the goddess attendant on Jina herself.
The incognito author of the epigraph, in a frame of a small Campūkāvya, a poem with an admixture of prose and verse, with four kāndas and one utpalamāla verses (there are two more verses in the

Page #33

HAMPANA: STATUS OF WOMEN IN JAINISM IN KARNATAKA
107
mutilated portion but not easily traceable), has portrayed the picture of a brave lady celebrity who was also known for her other virtues. This post-mortem memorial stone stands as an excellent testimonial of this illustrious devout lady lay votary (śrāvaki).
Scholars are of the opinion that the illustrious polyhistor poet Ranna, while staying with his patron and friend Cāmundarāya who caused the monolith colossus of Gommața at Savaņabeļagoļa, has authored this inscription. According to the opinion of Hampa Nagarajalah, a research scholar, that Ranna started to drive a quill with this inscription in C.E.980, and bid farewell to his magic wand by composing the Lakkundi inscription in C.E. 1007, both the writings being on the life sketch of pious and brave ladies of tenth century Kamņāțaka.
3. Pātra-Jagadale Bācaladevī (C. 1113. A.D)
The celebrated Mahā-mandaleśvara Tribhuvanamalla-BhujabalaGanga-Permmādideva (C.E. 1103-18) was ruling the Mandali-Thousand Kingdom in peace and wisdom; Edehalli was his capital, GangaMahadevi was his crown queen. He had four sons known for their valour and who were ornaments of Gangakula. Bācaladevi the King's other half and a prominent personality was a cream of Mandali-nad culture. She was to her King consort, a lady of wealth (Sri-vadhū), victory (Jaya-vadhū), celebrity (Kirti-Śrī-vadhū) and wisdom (vag-vadhū) personified, and a nonpareil to the spouses of other Kings. Among the sanghas the best is the Müla-sangha and in it is the Desiga-gana is the chief; Bācaladevi was a lady votary of Desiga-gaņa. Bācaladevi ardently practised the four gifts of learning (Šāstra-dāna), food (ahāradāna), medicine (bhaisajya) and shelter (abhaya), as a part of the four duties of a lay woman (Caturvidha-Śrāvikā-dharma). Whatever she had legitimately inherited in cash and kind, Bācaladevi, happily distributed it to the needy and the deserved and subjected her human body to the severe religious rituals of vows (restraint). With her charitable disposition and other meritorious accomplishments Bācaladevi was a match to Attimabbe's proverbial bounteousness. Only such titles behove Bacaladevi as dāna-kalpaje, a legendary tree of heaven which grants all wishes, dāna-vinode, deserving pleasure in giving gifts asked for, dana-cintāmaņi, a gem yeilding everything wanted by its possessor, catur-vidyā-vindoe deriving pleasure in the four fold learning, Saubhāgya Śacidevi, the prosperous Indrāni Varadanaguna-bhūsane adorned with great virtue of munifience, Kasturikāmode delectable like musk. Bācaladevi was idolised as the protector of the Nirgrantha church. Her head with its dark blue long hair was sacro sanct with the

Page #34

JAIN JOURNAL: Vol-XXXIII, No. 3 January 1999 sprinkle of hallowed water of God Jina's ablution. Her graceful gait is comparable only to the dignified elephant's walk.
108
Bacaladevi, a woman of renown, did not confine herself to the four walls of seraglio. A fortune's darling, a patron of goddess of speech ('the muse'), Bacaladevi encouraged art, architecture, religion and culture. She had earned nonpareil distinction in performing art. So versatile in the art of dancing was Bacaladevi that she had the immaculate fame of competing with the professional expert court dancers of Indra, the chief of gods, without any exertion at all.
The prowess of the Mandali-Thousand King Bhujabali-GangaPermmäḍideva was such that the hostile rival kings were made to surrender and prostrate. Though the king had conquered the strong rulers by his might, Bacaladevi had conquered him by her talent and graceful coquetry. The way in which she captivated her husband was like a nāṭaka, a play. Pleased with her excellent dance performance, he gave her the befitting cognomen of paātra-jagadale 'chief of the world of dancers'.
Bacaladevi was also an adroit singer. She continued to glitter with unsullied fame in the field of vocal music that she effortlessly vanquished the opposite group of singers. Overjoyed with her genius, the Maha-maṇḍaleśvara Bhujabala-Ganga, with his queen consort Ganga-Mahadevi, granted the town Bannikere to Bacaladevi and confirmed its enjoyment to the third generation. Her father was an officer appointed by the king to perform domestic and ceremonial duties of the palace. She was a female bee at the lotus feet of the Jina, the spiritual victor. She was dedicated to enhance the glory of her religion, so was her elder brother Bahubali, who had earned name and fame as a devout Jaina. The patronisation of Bacaladevi to the cause of Jainism reached its apogee in the construction of a temple. Taking council with her brother Bahubali, she caused a Caityalaya which was parexcellence to desiga-gana and the Mandali-Thousand. Looking at the best of Caityalayas a resonance of exclamation found a vent: 'a similar Jinabhavana neither existed in the past nor is seen now or will be found in future, in the heaven or in the Nagaloka, the nether world'. Thus the construction of Jina-Parsvadeva Jinalaya at Bannikere was praised as an extraordinary feat, not within the reach of ordinary persons; the basadi was an ornament of the Mandali-nāḍ. In the oceangirdled world, celebrated is Gangavāḍi-nāḍ, in it is the distinguished Mandali-nāḍ, to which as the face Bannikere was its nose, blessing everyone was its Lord Parsvanatha. For that holy God in the year C.E. 1113, the king Bhujabala-Ganga Permmäḍideva, his crown queen

Page #35

109
HAMPANA: STATUS OF WOMEN IN JAINISM IN KARNATAKA
Ganga-Mahadevi, in the presence of nad prabhus, county sheriffs, made a grant, free of all imposts, of Budanagare, certain lands in Bannikere, a garden, two oil-mills, and certain customs-dues in both those towns. Grants were also given to the stone mason Kāļoja and for the dancing girls. The donee was the preceptor of Bacaladevi, the chief of Mulasangha, a Desiga-gana, Śubhacandra-deva munipa, a disciple of Maladhärideva-yamina, an ascetic. For the decorations of the god, Erekaņņam, Lokkiguṇḍi-prabhu, also granted one and a half Lokkigadyāṇa, a particular variety of gold coin minted at Lokkigundi, the place of Annigadeva, son of Attimabbe, to increase by interest some land. Benediction: Let the earth grow in plenty without any fib, the king Bhujabala-Ganga stretch his kingdom with his strong shoulders and let Jainism flourish perpetually as long as sun, moon, and starts endure. The author of the inscription seems to have possessed the title of Budhābja-vana-kala-hamsa, a swan of art in the lotus pond of scholars.
The above grants and the presence of the king, queen, all the four princes, the nāḍ-prabhus and ministers go to confirm the great influence of the towering personality of Bacaladevi, who rose to the status of queen from being born in the family of a county sheriff, by the virtues of her wisdom, genius and physical beauty (EC. VII-I. (OLD) Shimoga No. 97. C.E. 1113. Alahally. pp. 106-08]. The glory of this Bannikere did not stop at this, it made a further headway and an unforgettable landmark in the annals of Nirgrantha creed.
The Pārsvadevālaya of Bannikere very soon attracted the bhavyas, devotees from far and wide. The Pārśvajinālaya was a nerve centre of religious activities and Bannikere expanded as a Jaina settlement. The Jaina-Matha to which the basadi was attached was flourishing; the chief abbatial monk of the diocese of Bannikere was the illustrious Śubhacandradeva-munipa who had the cognomen of a Siddhantaratnākara an ocean of the dogmas of Jainism. He was impeccable and the only head jewel of the noble religion in the world. Subhacandradeva was a disciple of Maladhārideva-Yaminah, a dot-less moon to the ocean of Desiga-gana.
When the Parsva Jinamandira of bannikere marched ahead alluring the votaries from different places, every Caityalaya would invariably be equipped with Śrutabhāṇḍāra, library of religious literature with canonical texts, The newly built Pārsvadevalaya of Bannikere was immediately in need of Siddhanta-granthas, in particular the Dhavala and Jayadhavalā Ṭīkās and the primordial texts of Nirgrantha creed. The adept Subhacandradeva himself a Siddhānta-ratnākara, well

Page #36

110
JAIN JOURNAL: Vol-XXXIII, No. 3 January 1999 versed in canonical knowledge, wanted to teach his pupil. It was a rare co-incedence of providence that, during the same period of C.E. 1113, Rati-Deviyakka, an illustrious lady votary of ascetic Subhacandradeva, had camped at Bannikere basadi for concluding her religious observance of Śruta-pañcami Vrata. She learnt the immediate necessity of Dhavala-Tikās and instantaneously made the required arrangement; forthwith came the skilled copyists and swung into action at once. Thanks to the timely action of the philanthrophist and pious lady Deviyakka, a copy of the Virasena-ācāryas Dhavalātīkā was made available not only to her revered pontiff SubhacandraSiddhāntadeva but to the whole world, because that is the one and only copy available to this day.
Therefore, Bācaladevi, by causing a remarkable Jain temple at Bannikere, has helped the preservation of agama traditional knowledge. However, to-day the Jina-Pārśva temple at Bannikere does not exist. Nevertheless Bācaladevi has carved a place in the niche of fame as a custodian of Jaina āgamas for having laid the foundation of creating a conductive atmosphere.
4. Poetess Jakkalāmbā (C. 1170-1212 A.D.)
During the region of the major dynasties, some minor dynasties also flourished; The Sānantaras of Cikka-Māgadi was one such. They ruled, as a tributory dynasty, from C.E. 902 to 1256, for three hundred and fifty years, as a part of Nāgarakhanda-seventy kampaņa, with their residence at Cikka-Māgadi, now a village in Sikāripura taluk of Shimoga District in Karnataka. The Cikka-Māgaời dynasty originated from Anļuvamsa and ruled as tributary family under Rāştrakūtas, Cālukyas of Kalyāņa and the Hoyasalas. They were strict and ardent followers of Jainism and facilitated the spred of their creed.
When Vira-Balla?adeva, the Hoysaļa King was ruling, Cikka-Māgadi was a flourishing Nirgrantha centre, with splended temples of Sāntinātha and a Ratna traya-basadi Of the many lay votaries of the four-fold Jaina congregation, Jakkavve was an outstanding upāsikā. Her mother was Laccava, a śrāvikā, her father Mudda, an ornament of vassals an upāsaka, her husband vinūtana (novel) Bharata a renowned śramanopāsaka, her preceptor in penance Anantakirtimunipa, a Jaina monk, her sister, Mallawe-gāvundi, an upāsikā.
Jakkalāmbā had other nomens; Jakkavve, Jakkiakka, Jakkambikā, Jakku-Mahāsati. These aliases suggest the popularity she was enjoying.
Jakkalāmbā has carved a niche in the annals of the womanhood

Page #37

HAMPANA: STATUS OF WOMEN IN JAINISM IN KARNATAKA
and in the history of Kannada literature. She lived an immortal life, full of challenges, of agony, of virtue and sacrifice. Jakkāmbikā, an ideal model for men and women alike by courageously facing the adversity. The individuality of Jakkalāmba found its vent in two fields, in the sphere of literature and in the domain of religion, both as complimentary to each other.
Jakkalāmbā [C. 1170-1212] was an authoress, perhaps, the only Jaina woman writer so far known for certain. Kanti, supposed to be the first Jaina and Kannada poetess and a contemporary of Nāgacandra, (C.E. 1046-1100), a court-poet of Calukyas of Kalyāṇa and an author of two classics, is a mysterious character; the riddles attributed to her wisdom apper to be apocryphal of later origin. A poem, composed in tripadi, three-footed verses, called Candanambikeya-Kathe has come to light; it is a work of a Jaina poetess, an incognito authoress of fifteenth century. However Jakkalāmbā, the first known authoress, had a pseudonym also; 'Srimati' was her nom de plume. She had authored a poem called Guṇānkamāle-carite and unfortunately the work is not extant.
111
The Gunankamale-carite of Jakkalāmbā had earned good reputation in the early thirteenth century. So prominent was the poetess Jakkalāmbā alias Srimati, her pen name, that Raghavānka, a contemporary poet of distinction has mentioned her name (Srimati) in one of his verses of Somanatha-carite (c. 1225 A.D.). Nemarasa, a later poet (c. 17th-18th cent.) respectfully mentions the name of Srimathi in his work Lobahadatta-carite along with the names of Pampa, Ponna, Ranna, Nāgacandra, Nemicandra and Janna, the luminaries of Kannada literati. After a careful scrutiny, the congregation of eminent scholars praised Guṇānkamāle-carite as a 'Suprabandha', a fine long poem composed by Jakkale; her fame reached the walls of all eight directions; now she reached the world of gods to continue to drive a quill; thus she bequeathed a great name [EC. VII-I (BLR) Sk. No. 196. c.e. 1212 p. 284]-is the opinion of her contemporary literary circle, as recorded in the epigraph. The above charter refers to the nature and form of Jakkalamba. Jakkalāmbā's poem as prabandha, which means evidently a campu-kävya; Pampa himself and many authors of name in Kannada and Telugu have described their campu works as prabandhas. Hence we can safely conclude that Gunankamale-carite the work of Srimati alias Jakkalāmbā, a campü-poem of greater merit.
Later half of Jakkalamba's life was on the wane; she and the members of her family were tortured by the religious fanatics; the innocent were butchered during daylight for nefarious ends, the friars

Page #38

112
JAIN JOURNAL: Vol-XXXIII, No. 3 January 1999
and nuns were beheaded, the holy places of worship were spoiled. It was a struggle of ascetic unarmed, persona of ancient provenance, against the armed militants. Jakkalāmbā, a woman of the world conceived her vexation. Jakkalāmbā after introversion preferred an honourable death to unholy life. She approached her religious teacher in the Ratna-traya-basadi, who, upon her request, administered the vow of sallekhanā properly thinning out the passions and the body.
Jakkale had her life, character and 22 titles composed in poetry, such as to gain the approval of the learned; having it inscribed before hand so as to reach all points of the compass, saying-'I will now take it to the heaven and have it inscribed among the gods', the mahā-sati Jakkale ascended the suarga.
This excellent charter written in Kannada script contains in all 111 lines, composed both in Kannada and Sanskrit languages; lines from number 30 to 53 and 78 to 84 are in Sanskrit and the rest are in Kannada. This nisidhi, a post mortem memorial stone in honour of Jakkale, is a piece of good poem containing ten verses in Mattebhavikridita and campaka-māla metres, gives a graphic description of her devotion to god, dedication to her faith and the tranquility at the time of her death.
Jakkalāmbā had dispelled mithyatva, incorrect view of reality by consuming Jina-Väkyāmrta' the ambrosia of the teachings of the spiritual victor, her mind had the stamp of darśana-samsuddhata, the true spiritual insight; she knew that the profane does not belong to her, she made her heart a lotus seat to install the Jina - thus Jakkambikä discarded the transmigratic human body of karmic matter and her eternal soul smoothly reached the samavasarana, the holy assembly of the Arhat, to worship the victorious.
Jakkave, through imbibing the nector of Jina's teaching, the divine voice (divya-dhvani), having given up the false impressions of the mind, and being filled with desire to attain to the purity set forth in the doctrine. Having given up all, saying-'not so much as a grain is mine', and thinking on her god, came to a decision. Thus placing herself at the lotus feet of Jina, fixing her eyes on the tip of her nose, and listening to the words of the agama, scripture, the canonical literature with ears and eyes having completed sanyāsana, by the rite of samādhi, ritual death by fasting, Jakkale attained to the company of heaven.
Repeating the same description as above, recorded in the Sanskrit verse, the epigraphist puts it more graphically in the Kannada verse: while deeply immersed in meditation, Jakkāmbikā fixed her vision on

Page #39

HAMPANA: STATUS OF WOMEN IN JAINISM IN KARNATAKA
the lotus feet of Jina; her ears listening nothing but the chanting from the holy scripture; her lips moving only to utter pañca-pada, the reverent salutation to the five holy beings. Thus she had all her five senses concentrated on contemplation. She had no ill will against anybody; adopted the prescribed posture of reclining; by thought, word and deed she had lost all terrestrial interests of love or hatred to her kith and kin. Who on earth will not praise Jakkalāmbā, the best among womankind?
Those who were present to see the mortals of Jakkāmbikā consigned to the fire said in one voice: At present, Bharata-kṣetra, our earth, is in avasarpini, a state of regressive half-cycle with the cessation of the realm of enjoyment (bhoga-bhūmi) and the extremely unhappy period (pañca-makāla or atidussama); but the birth of the best of womanhood like Jakkalamba, the progressive period (ut-sarpini) will increase step by step. Like the river washing the dirt with its flow, Jakkale, the chaste woman washed off the bondages and the creeper of her immaculate fame spread in all directions.
113
Mallavve-gāvundi, younger sister of Jakkale also followed the foot prints of her elder sister and accepted the rite of sallekhanā. Seeing the fate of both of his daughters, Muddaiah, the worthy father and a samanta, a governor, also preferred death while in meditation and willingly surrendered to the inevitable death.
The incognito author of the inscription, evidently a Jain by faith, is well-versed in the art of poesy and connoisseur in Kannada and Sanskrit languages.
5. Rāņi-Cennabhairādevī (C.E. 1532-69)
During the reign of Sadasivaraya, perhaps, Cennabhaira-devi, one of the greatest of women rulers of India, mahāmaṇḍalesvara-Amma, the boon daughter (Vara-Kumari) of Bhairādevi-Amma and a grand daughter of Vira-devi, deserves in extenso introduction. She ruled the principality of Hāḍuvalli-rājya (a Sanskritized form of this Kannada place name being Sangitapura) as an able administrator for more than two and a half decades. Though there are instances of some queens ruling major or minor kingdoms, they are the examples of either ruling for a very brief period or for the interregnum period. But as an exception Rāņi ('the queen') Cenna-bhairādevi-Amma successfully controlled the affairs of the state; Cenna means pleasing, Bhairadevi is a cognomen of goddess Padmavati, Amma means mother, but the word is also used as a term of respect while addressing a woman and it is added as a

Page #40

JAIN JOURNAL: Vol-XXXIII, No. 3 January 1999 suffix for the personal names of women; thus Rāņi-cenna-bhairā-deviAmma the very nomen has a special significance.
114
Cennabhaira devi is the only woman who was a mahāmaṇḍaleśvara; since the noun is a masculine form, there is nothing wrong in using the corresponding feminine form, mahāmaṇḍaleśvari; but somehow Chennabhaira-devi is described as mahāmaṇḍaleśvara. Whatever be that, she was simultaneously ruling over Gerasoppa olim Nagire (also known as kṣemapura, Bhallaṭakipura), Hāḍuvalli (Skt. Sangitapura), Bhaṭakala, Honnavara (Skt. Suvarṇapuri), Bārakur and other minor kingdoms. Jeṭṭinayaka was her minister and Viranāyaka her senāpati Mahāmaṇḍaleśvari Cennabhairādevi-Amma had her main residence at Sangitapura olim Hāḍuvalli. She was a niece of Devarasa-Oḍeya alias Kriṣṇadevanṛpati, a predecessor of Gururaya-oḍeya. Cennabhairādevi-Amma alias Cennādevi Amma succeeded to the throne after Gururāya-Oḍeya.
The queen Cennabhairādevi had to face a number of challenges both from outside and from within. At the very beginning of her reign, the Portugese captain of Goa laid seige to Bhaṭakala, one of the vital centres of her kingdom. He burnt Bhaṭakala, marched on the palace when Enkappa-nāyaka bravely stopped the enemies at the gates and fell fighting. The queen survived to rule unperturbed. Cennadevi-Amma reigned efficiently and long enough to have witnessed the fall of Vijayanagara empire (A.D. 1565).
Cennabhairava-Mahadevi, the mahāmaṇḍaleśvara, was an ardent devotee of Nirgrantha creed. She was the first woman ruler and the last ruler of the line of Hāḍuvalli-dynasty. When the able queen was ruling, her kingdom was the scene of hectic Jaina religious activities and housed within its bounds basadis dedicated to Tirthankaras and śāsana-devatās (the yakṣa-yakṣis). She extended her patronage to her faith, exquisite monasteries were caused, the friars and nuns were highly respected. Thus Jainism rose to greater heights and it was the religion of the large section of the people.
Under her able reign the kingdom prospered by leaps and bounds, social and economic conditions improved. She was exporting blackpepper to foreign countries including Europe. The Portugese had nicknamed her as kari-meṇasina-rāņi, 'queen of black-pepper'. Foreign travellers of sixteenth century and the historians have praised her valour, efficiency, wisdom and virtues.
Of the Jain temples at Gerasoppa Hire-basadi ('senior-temple') olim Pārsvanatha basadi, Neminatha basadi olim Mūḍe-basadi,

Page #41

HAMPANA : STATUS OF WOMEN IN JAINISM IN KARNATAKA
115 Vardhamāna-basadi, Pārsvanātha-basadi and half a dozen completely ruined basadis speak of the past glory. The best of all temples is the caturmukha-basadi, a magnificent piece of art and architecture. Built on a terrace of 20' high, in the star shape, in the centre of the above temple are the grand images of four Tirthankaras seated back to back in paryankāsana posture. The basadi has doors on all the four sides. Rāņi Cenna-bhairādevi-Amma was a liberal patron of architecture.
# noi
A kingdom which was an important Jaina settlement, after the fall of the queen mahāmandalesvari Cennabhairādevī-Amma, wore a look of deserted capital, and the ruins are the mute witness of the glory that is no more. Sources: 1. Epigraphia Carnatica, Vol. VII-I (BLR) Śikāripura No.
219, A.D. 918 p. 298. 2. Ibid. Śikāripura 220. A.D. 1015 p. 299. 3. Hampa Nagarajaiah, :Sāntararu-ondu Adhyana : 1997:
pp. 11-15. 4. Epigraphia Carnatica, Vol. II (R) 172 (139), undated,
pp. 116-17. Ibid., No. 64 (59). A.D. 975. p. 22.
EC. Vol. VIII (BLR) Nagara, No. 145, A.D. 1077. 4. Hampa Nagarajaiah, :Sāntararu-ondu Adhyana : 1997
App. 337-46. 5. Hampa Nagarajalah, : Kavivara-kāmadhenu : 1996:
pp. 78-81. 6. Epigraphia Carnatica, Vol.VII, Part-1 (old), Śikaripura
No. 196, C.E. 1212. Cikkamāgadi (shimonga dt/sk. tk)
pages. 283-84. 7. Srimati Kamala Hampana, -Jakkālambā-(article) in
Sammilana, (ed) M.A. Jayacandra, 1994. 8. Bhojaraja Ba. Patil: Nāgarakhanda-70, Ondu Adhyana:
1995: 215-17. 9. Karnatak Inscriptions, Vol. II, Part-1, No. 15, A.D. 1545;
ibid, No. 8, C.E. 1530; ibid, No. 12, A.D. 1542; ibid No.
13, 1542. 10. ARSIE 1929-30, Inscription Nos. 540 and 542, A.D.
1559. 11. K.V. Ramesh, : A History of South Kanara; 1970;
pp. 229-30. 12. Bhattasuri: Gerusoppe (Nagara Bastikeri) Jaina Vāstu
Mattu Mūrtiśilpa: 1996.

Page #42
Registered with the Registrar of Newspapers for India Under No. R. N. 12121/66. Winter 1999 If pure music had the power to beckon Clouds and bring rain, Pure beauty may, one day, bring back Light in the blinded eye. We believe so. And therefore we tryWith our sculptures. POT POURRIE CREATIONS THE LINCODA 1/A, Jatin Bagchi Road Calcutta - 700 029. Phone/Fax: 464-3074/1843 Calcutta show room : IP-591, Purna Das Road Calcutta - 700 029. Phone No. 463-2366 Delhi show room : 14 Kaushalaya Park Hous Khas New Delhi - 110 016 Phone No. 6528407 Jain Education InternationaBy she courtesy-ANTARCTICASSOGRAPHIC LIMITED 1A, Vidyasagar Street, Calcutta-700 009