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 41

2. JAINISM IN ANDHRADESA
6) Dänavula pādu in the Cuddapah District was a great centre of the Jaina faith. Excavations carried on at this village by the Archaeological Department of the Government of India in 1903 have unearthed a large number of remarkable antiquities of the Jaina creed.' Finely carved pedestals and pillars bearing the figures of Tirthakaras and their Sāsanadēvatās and Nishidhi memorials bave been discovered in this place. Some of these objects bear early inscriptions of about the 8th and 9th centuries A. D. But on the evidence of two other categories of finds the antiquity of the place can be pushed back to still earlier times. Herein was excavated a chamber of bricks in which was enshrined an image of Pārsvanātha Tirthakara. These bricks were of considerably big size and resembled those found in the ruined Buddhist stūpas in the Krishņā District. A few Andhra coins were also picked up in course of digging. These two lust named finds would indicate that this place might have been a Jaina centre at least from the third century A. D.
We may note here an interesting fact regarding the name Dānavulapāļu attached to the village. Dānavula-pädu means 'the ruined settlement of demons'. It is a term of reproach evidently coined and applied to the place of Jaina associations by the followers of the orthodox faith at a later period when Jainism fell into discredit. This expression may be contrasted with the name Dēvagudi meaning the temple of gods', borne by another village in the neighbourhood.'
3. Insoriptions HATHIGUMPHA INSCRIPTION: Now we enter into the secure realm of inscriptions which furnish eminently authentic and supremely reliable testimony in our investigation. The first and foremost landmark of epigraphical discovery in regard to the advent of Jainism in the Āndhra Dēša is to be traced in the famous Häthigumpha inscription of king Khäravõla who was a powerful champion of the Jaina doctrine. The epigraph which has been assigned to the second century B. C. speaks of the activities carried on by this Kalinga ruler for the promotion of Jaina faith. One of the king's achievements recounted in the epigraph was the setting up of the image of Kalinga Jina which had been snatched away by king Nanda ; and another was the erection of a shrine near the Relic Depository of the Arhat
| Annual Report, Archaeological Survey of India, 1905-06, pp. 120-127. 2 The above is a brief review of the Jaina antiquities and ancient relios, It is not exhaustive. Much of the account is based on the information contained in the Lists of Antiquarian Remains in the Madras Presidency, Vol. I; and Studies in South
Indian Jainism. 3 Ep. Ind., Vol. XX, pp. 71 ff.