________________
128
COMPREHENSIVB HISTORY OF JAINISM
Meghacandra Traividya. Both these monks are mentioned in some other epigraphsato, which have already been discussed. It records the erection of a Jina temple, by the queen śāntaladevi, called by the rather curious name Savatigandhavāraṇabasti. According to this epigraph, Sāntaladevi, the queen of Hoysala king Vishnuvardhana, was the daughter of Mārasimha and Macikabbe. She has been described as a rampart to the Jain faith and as a rutting elephant to ill-mannered co-wives (udvrtta-savatıgandhavāraņa), and this apparently gave its name to the temple, erected by the queed. We are told, that the garden, which she granted, to the temple, was obtained from her husband, the king Vishņuvardhana himself.
The death of śāntaladevi is mentioned in several epigraphs, including one of 1131 A.D.871 We are told that the father of this great lady was a devotee of siva, and her mother, a Jain devotee and Prabhācandra was the guru of both the daughter and the mother. The mother Măcikabbe, we are told, died by fasting at Belgola,
An earlier epigraph®?, dated 117 A.D., from this place, records the erection of a Jina temple, by two merchants and yields the name of the Jain sage Bbānukirti. However, the most dominating figure, of that time, was Gangarāja, the Jain general of Vishnuvardhana, who was undoubtedly one of the greatest champions of the Jain faith of the 12th century, in South India. Several epigraphs, from Śravana Belgola, describe his passion and love for the religion of the Tirthaikaras. An epigraph978, of 1118 A.D., describes Gaigarāja as the lay disciple of Subhacandra Siddhāntadeva, who was the disciple of Kukkuțā sana Maladhärideva of the Pustaka gaccha, belonging to the Deśı gana of the Mūla. sangha and Kondakunda anvaya. We are told in this epigraph, that Gangarāja renovated all the Jina temples of Gangavādi, “wherever he marched, wherever he was encamped, wherever his eyes rested, wherever bis mind was attracted, there he had Jina temples made." Another