Gommateshvara Commemoration Volume

SR No.: 012066
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: T G Kalghatgi
Publisher: Parshwanath Shodhpith Varanasi
Publication Year: 1981
Total Pages: 198
Language: English, Hindi
Classification: Smruti_Granth & Articles
File Size: 8 MB

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Gommates.vara Commemoration Volume:
Labdhisāra, Kşapaņasāra and Karma-prakriti, all in Prakrit verse. He claims to have earned the title 'Siddhānta-Cakravarti' (Paramount Sovereign of the Doctrine) for his having mastered the 'six divisions of the Siddhānta,' that is, the Satakhandagama together with its Dhavalā commentary, in the same was as a temporal monarch becomes a Cakravartin after subduing the six divisions of Bharatakşetra. He was a guru of the Deśiyagaña-Pustakagaccha, a branch of the Nandisaṁgha of the Mulasamgha-Kundakundānvaya, and among his preceptors, teachers and contemporary elder saints he mentions several names: Indranandi, who appears to be identical with the author of Jvala malini-Kalpa written in 939 A. D, and his disciple Kanakanandi, the author of Sattvasthāna (Vistara-Satta-tribhangi), bulk of which has been incorporated by Nemicandra in his Karmakānda. Another guru was Abhayanandi, the disciple of Vibudha Gunanandi and preceptor of Viranandi, the author of Candraprabha-carita. Yet another guru was Ajitasena of Senagana, mentioned already. This Ncmichandra was in all probability a Kannadiga and belonged originally to these very parts. The Bhattāraka-svāmījis of the Sravanabelgola Pitha claim descent from this celebrated Siddhānta-Cakravarti.
Name : There is no evidence, literary or inscriptional, earlier than the 12th century, to show that Bāhubali, the celebrated ascetic son of Lord Rşabha (Purudeva or Adinātha) was ever called by the nāme of Gommața. Even his image at Sravanabelgola was originally designated as Kukkuțeśvara, Kukkuța-Jina or the Dakşiņa-Kukkuța-Jina, because it was traditionally believed that the original image of the saint, erected near Podanapura by Bharata Cakravartin, had been entirely covered and surrounded by dreadful Kukkuța-sarpas (dragons with body of fowl and head of serpent) after sometime, and had thus become unapproachable and untraceable. Since the site of that image was believed to lie somewhere towards the north, the Sravanabelgoļa image of Kukkuţeśvara (Bāhubah) was designated as Dakşiņa-Kukkuța-Jina (the Kukkuța Jina of the South). Nemicandra himself and the poet Ranna also called it so. But in later times, the image came to be so popularly known as the Gommața, Gommagesa, Gommateśvara, Gommaţa-Jina, Gommata-deva, Gommața-nätha or Gommața-svāmi that all subsequent colossi, viz., those at Karkal, Venur, Shravanappagiri (near Mysore), Bastihaddi, Dharmasthala, etc., came to bear that name, which in a way became synonymous with the saint Bāhubali. Hence the early set of modern scholars, like S. C. Ghoshal, N. R. Premi, J. L. Jaini, M. Govind Pai, S. Srikantha Sastri, and H. L. Jain, started with the presumption that Gommata was another name of Bahubali and that it was why his colossus at Sravanabelgola got the name and the term was applied to several other persons and things associated with it. Govind Pai went so far as to make out the term 'Gommața' a corrupt derivation of the Sanskrit word 'Manmatha' (or Kāmadeva, the god of love and beauty), and since Bahubali is believed to have been the first Kāmadeva of the Jaina tradition, Pai found a justification for the appellation in his case." Some others, like J. L. Jaini,