Temples of Kumbhariya

SR No.: 001571
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: M A Dhaky, U S Moorty
Publisher: L D Indology Ahmedabad
Publication Year: 2001
Total Pages: 394
Language: English
Classification: Book_English & Art
File Size: 34 MB

Page 49

Jainism in Gujarat
and a now headless seated figure of a Jina, at present in the Government Museum, Junagadh, believed to be from Prabhāsa. A Jaina monastic settlement of Digambara affiliation existed in the eighth century in Nāgasārikā (Navasarī) in Southern Gujarat. And there were contemporaneous Jaina establishments of consequence in the tracts of Rajasthan adjoining Gujarat, for example at Citrakūta (Cittaud) in Medapāța (Mevād) where the great Haribhadra sūri (active c. A.D. 745-785) stayed and wrote his commentaries on five āgamas and composed several works in Prakrit and Sanskrit including a few hymns. And in Jābālipura (Jālor) some abbatial pontiffs of the Nāgendra kula such as Vīrabhadra lived and where his pupil, Uddyotana sūri, composed the famous Kuvalayamālākahā in Prakrit in A.D. 778. In c. A.D. 800, Gunapāla of the same lineage composed a work, the Jambūcariya, in Prakrit. Vīrabhadra had built a temple to Adinātha at Jābālipura. Also, in Satyapura (Sāñcor) was built a temple to Jina Mahāvīra, apparently in early Pratīhāra times and probably by the Pratīhāra potentate Nāgabhatta I, in c. A.D. 750, which became a very famous 'tīrtha' in the medieval period.
In the meantime, Arabs from Sindh attacked Valabhī in A.D. 758, again in 776, and finally in A.D. 787. As a result, Valabhi was completely devastated with its famous Buddhist University, the many Buddhist monasteries and temples, and assuredly also its Brahmanical and Jaina foundations. Thus was terminated the 250 years old Maitraka rule in Valabhī. Before it all happened, at least the ancient sacred Jina images from Valabhi's Jaina temples were transferred to safer havens like Prabhāsa, Vardhamānapura (Vadhavāņa), Kāśahrda (Kāsindrā), Hārija, and Bhillamāla as reported in late medieval writings. In those fateful years, Jinasena of Punnāta samgha, an immigrant branch of monks from Karņātadeśa, composed his famous work, the Harivamśapurāņa, in A.D. 784 in Vardhamānapura in Saurāstra. He refers to the temple of (the Jaina Yakşi) Ambikā, 'śāsanadevatā' of Jina Aristanemi, on the first of the five summits of Ujjayantagiri (Girnār Hills), later called after the goddess as ‘Ambā-śikhara', as also a Jaina temple at Dostaţikā (Dottadī), also located in Saurāṣtra. The existence of an ancient Jaina temple at Anandapura (Vadanagara) in north Gujarat is alluded to by Jayasimha sūri of Krsnarși-gaccha in his Dharmopadeśamālā-vīvaraņa (A.D. 859). Incidentally, a few years earlier, the same author had composed an expository work on the Upadeśamālā of Dharmadāsa gani (c. mid 6th cent. A.D.) In his times, Nāgapura (Nagaur) in Upper Rajasthan, had a flourishing Svetāmbara establishment.