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

Page 92

ROYAL BENEVOLENCE
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To this great Jaina logician, Tribhuvanamalla Ereyanga, while ruling the Gangamandala, granted Rācanahalla and the Belgola 12 for the repairs of the basadis of the Kalbappu tirtha (of Belgola).1 Since the king was ruling the Gangavāḍi, and since the royal endowment affected all the basadis in the holy place round the Kalbappu hill (i.e., Katavapra or Candragiri) at Sravana Belgola, it is said in the epigraph that Gopanandi caused the Jina dharma to prosper through the wealth of the Ganga kings. We know that by this time the Ganga rule had disappeared; yet the benevolent precedent set up by the Gangas could never be obliterated from the mind of either the Jainas or the Karnataka monarchs.2
""
In an earlier context we have had an occasion to describe all the celebrated colleagues of Gopanandi, as given in the Kattalebasti record dated about A.D. 1100. This inscription, we may incidentally add, repeats the praise given to Gopanandi in the record dated A.D. 1094, and tells us that he caused the Jaina religion, which had for a long time been at a stand-still, to attain the prosperity and fame of the Ganga kings," thereby confirming the importance of that guru in the history of Jainism.
King Ballāļa I, the eldest son of king Ereyanga, succeeded
1. E. C. V, Cn. 148, pp. 189-190.
2. On Katavapra, read Ibid., II, Intr. p. 4, seq.
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3. Ibid., II, 69, pp. 34-35. In a record dated A.D. 1136, it is said that the guru of the head-jewel of the Yadava race, Ereyanga Deva, considered the jagad-guru, was Ajitasenasvāmi." (E. C. V, Bl 17, p. 51) Rice accepts this statement. (E. C. VI, Intr., p. 11). We know that Ereyanga ruled as a yuvarāja from A.D. 1063 till A.D. 1095. It cannot be made out how far the statement of the record dated A.D. 1136 regarding Ereyanga and Ajitasena is correct. Perhaps it may not be wrong to assume that on the death of Gopanandi, Ajitasena may have become the guru of Ereyanga. This requires confirmation.