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 175

4. JAINISM IN KARNATAKA
149
4. Madras Karnātaka
BALLARY DISTRICT ADONI: The area of the Adoni taluk appears to have come under the influence of Jainism at an early age and some of the Jaina relics preserved here deserve to be noted. On the Bárakilla Hill at
exists a rock-cut Jain temple which has treasured sculptures of the Tirthakaras seated in a row, carved in the rock. In the hill fort of Adoni has been discovered the figure of Pārsvanātha with writing inscribed on the rocky side. On a rock at Hālaharavi, a village in the Adoni taluk, has been found an important inscription of the Rashtrakūţa regime. It states that when Chandiyabbe, the queen of Kannara, was administering the district of Sindavādi One Thousand, she constructed a Jaina temple at Nandavara and made suitable provision for its maintenance. Mention is made of a teacher named Padmanandi. The record is dated in Saka 854 or roughly A. D. 932 in the reign of Nityavarsha who might be Indra III. There seems to be some discrepancy in regard to the date. Kannara referred to above might be Kțishņa III who appears to have been holding some subordinate position as a junior prince at the time.
KÕGALI: Kögali in the Hadagalli taluk was an important centre of Jainism from early times. Though the earliest inscription disclosing the prevalence of the faith here, belongs to the 10th century A. D., its history goes back to a still earlier age. The inscription on a slab set up near the Basti' or Jaina temple is dated in A. D. 992 in the reign of Abavamalla or Taila II, the founder of the Western Chālukya dynasty of Kalyāṇa. At that time the king was on his southern expedition and, having captured 150 royal elephants of the Chola king, had encamped at Rodda in the modern Anantapur District. The epigraph describes in detail the settlement of the revenue by allotting the lands and fixing the taxation for the several tenants of Kõgali, as sanctioned by the king. In this connection mention is made of the pontiff Gañadharadēva Bhattāraka who was the supreme religious head of the locality (sthānādhipati). An extensive area comprising several thousand acres of land was alienated and it was prescribed that the income derived from the transactions connected with the titles of land, etc., within the municipal limits of the town, should be utilised for the benefit of the local Jaina temple.
The epigraph found on another slab in front of the same Basti, furnishes interesting information in regard to the origin of the temple and
1 An. Rep. (op. cit.) 1916, Appendix B, No. 540. 2 8. I. L., Vol. IX, part I, No. 77. 3 Ibid, No. 117,