Jainism in South India and Some Jaina Epigraphs

SR No.: 011025
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: P B Desai
Publisher: Jain Sanskruti Samrakshak Sangh Solapur
Publication Year: 1957
Total Pages: 495
Language: English
Classification: Book_English
File Size: 33 MB

Page 153

4. JAINISM IN KARNATAKA
127
1484. This teacher might be Śrutakirti II as he appears to have lived approximately by this period.
1
Now we come to Vijayakirti II for whom we are in possession of another synchronism. As the Biligi epigraph avers, he caused to be constructed for his pupil king Devaraya a well-planned town named Baṭṭakala near the western ocean. This town is modern Bhatkal and the king Devaraya seems to be identical with the namesake younger brother of Saluvendra. Saluvendra had another younger brother named Gururaya and the latter's second son Chennarāja was an unflinching promoter of the Jaina doctrine. This Chennaraja is described as the swan in the lotus which are the feet of the sage Akalanka', in an inscription from Mudabhatkal, recording the death of the former under the vow Sallekhana in A. D. 1490. It would be reasonable to identify this Aklaunka with Akalanka I of the above genealogy.
HADUVALLI: Soon after this and before the middle of the 16th century A. D. the rulers of Haduvalli lost their individuality and vanished from the political horizon as a ruling family. The reasons for this may be traced partly in the weak and inefficient administration of these chiefs and the growing strength of the rulers of Nagire. who, by virtue of their close matrimonial alliances, often pushed themselves into the affairs of the former, and partly in the new political arrangement by which the whole area was placed under the authority of one provincial governor by the emperors of Vijayanagara.3 The rulers of Haduvalli were staunch supporters of the Jaina faith and inspired by the wholesome precepts of the pontiffs of Sangitapura they established many religious institutions and endowed them liberally. The large number of Jaina antiquities explored at Haduvalli, consisting of temples, images of bronze and stone representing various deities of the Jaina pantheon, and inscriptions, spread over an extensive area of ruins, testifies to the intensive fervour cherished by these chiefs for the doctrine of Lord Jina and the great encouragement it received at their hands. Kaikini and Bhatkal were other strongholds of Jainism in this region, wherein also has been traced a good number of Jaina antiquities.
An inscription from Haḍuvalli contains a graphic description of the demise of an eminent teacher of the Jaina Law under the vow of
3
1
An. Rep. on Kan. Research (op. cit.) p. 47.
2 Karnatak Inscriptions, Vol. I, No. 66.
3 An. Rep. on Kan. Research, 1939-40, pp. 45-46.
4 Ibid., pp. 30-31.
ō Karnatak Inscriptions, Vol. I, No. 49.