Jaina Gazette 1928

SR No.: 034890
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: Ajitprasad, C S Mallinath
Publisher: Jaina Gazettee Office
Publication Year: 1928
Total Pages: 502
Language: English
Classification: Book_English
File Size: 33 MB

Page 407

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THE JAINA GAZETTE Raya could never be the first recipient of that name and it was the colossus itself which first came to be known by that name.
(1) Inscriptions nos. 242 (1175 A.C.), 333 (1206 A.c.), 345 (1159 A C.), 349 (1159 A c.) and 397 (1129 A.C.) call Sravana Belgola by the name of 'Gommatapura', i.e., the city of Gommata. The name clearly shows that it means the city of God Gommata, i.e., the colossus of Bahubali, and has had nothing to do with Camunda Raya.
(2) Verse 968 of Nemicandra's 'Gommatasara' has "the Jina called Gommata standing on the Gommata peak." Would it not be far more likely and reasonable to believe that the peak at Sravana Belgola, on which the colossus stands, must have been so called after the name 'Gommata' of the colossus rather than after that of Camunda Raya ? This colossus stands on the larger hill. ' Vindhyagiri' or 'Indragiri.' If the larger hill could have been called 'Gommata' peak on account of Camunda Raya's name being 'Gommata,' why could not the smaller hill * Candragiri 'too be called by the same or some similar name, as it also contains a temple built by him? Would it not be reasonable, therefore, to conclude that the colossus itself came to be called. Gommata' earlier ? A similar case is Karkala (in South Kanara district). The rocky hillock there, on which another Gommata colossus stands, is also called 'Gommata betta,' i.e., the hill of Gommata, after the name 'Gommata' of the colossus itself, and not after the king Vira Pandya or 'Pandya Raja' who installed it.
(3) Nemicandra has not called Camundra Raya by the name of Gommata in the 'Trilokasara,' composed between 981 A.C. and 984 A.C., but only in his later work, the 'Gommatasara. This shows that the colossus must have acquired the name, 'Gommata' (or 'Gommatesvara ') in the interval, it perhaps being given by the crowds of pilgrims pouring in, year after year.
(4) The two other colossi, raised to Bahubali, the one at Karkala and the other at Venur (both in South Kanara district), are also called by the name, 'Gummata,' in their respective
inscriptions. The inscription at the left side of the Karkala Shree Sudharmaswami Gyanbhandar-Umara, Surat