Medieval Jainism

SR No.: 011082
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: Bhasker Anand Saletore
Publisher: Karnataka Publishing House
Total Pages: 448
Language: English
Classification: Book_English
File Size: 27 MB

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MEDIÆVAL JAINISM the hegemony of Karnāțaka. It is only when we come to the first quarter of the twelfth century A.D., when the Hoysala power was very firmly established in the country, and when, as a consequence of their political stability, a spirit of ornateness and robustness revealed itself in literature, and especially in architecture, that we have some details which we may now critically examine with the aid of epigraphs. These are the following-The Jaina sage and his identity, the status of the Hoysala chief, the weapon with which the latter killed the animal, the name of the goddess, and the identity of the animal which was killed.
1. THE JAINA SAGE. Excepting onc record of the eleventh century A.D., no other inscription of the eleventh and the twelfth century A.D., gives the name of the Jaina sage who helped Sala to found a kingdom. He is called Sudattamunipa in a stone inscription found on the bank of the river Dandāvati in the Sohrab tāluka, and assigned by Rice to A.D. 1208.2 Two stone inscriptions dated A.D. 1271 and A.D. 1284 respectively, and both sound in the Candraśāle, Beļļūr grāma, Nāgamangala, tell us that king Sala having brought a certain accomplished muni (called in the records merely Siddhamunīndra), established him in the abode of Vāsantikā in the prosperous Śaśapura (śri-sampattiya Śaśapura Väsantivāsavalli Siddhamunindram), and there the munindra was engaged in properly giving instruction to Sala.3
1. Read Saletore, Wild Tribes., p. 80 where I made a mistake in asserting that it was the Coļa general Aprameya who encountcred Poysala, the founder of the Hoysala line. This Hoysala ruler should have been, as Narasimhacarya pointed out, king Vinayāditya I. (M. A. R. for 1916, p. 51).
2. E. C. VIII. Sb. 28, p. 5
3. Ibid., IV. Ng. 38 and 39, pp. 122-123 ; text, pp. 347, 351 ; Rice, My. & Coorg., p. 95, n. (1).