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## 12
## Mahavipurana
It is not clear. The existence of Elacharya, a contemporary of Vira Sena, is not supported by any other texts. It is possible that the Aryananda Guru, whom Vira Sena himself mentions in the Dhavala through the verses "Ajjajjamandisisseṇa......" etc., is the same as Elacharya. Be that as it may.
## Place-Consideration
Digambara monks are described as having an uncertain abode like birds, meaning that just as birds do not have a fixed place of residence, neither do monks. Except for Pravadya, they are not allowed to stay in a large city for more than 5 days and nights, and in a small village for more than a day and night. Therefore, the mention of the residence of any Digambara monk during his monastic period is rarely found. However, it is essential to consider where they were born and where their household life was spent, in order to gain complete knowledge of any author.
It cannot be definitively said that Jinsen and Gunabhadra were born in a particular city of a particular country and lived mostly in a particular place, because this is not mentioned in any of their inscriptions. However, their own texts and those related to them mention Banka-pur, Vatagram, and Chitra-kut. This suggests that they may have been from the Karnataka province.
Banka-pur was the capital of the Vanavasa country at that time, and is now located in Dharwad Bile in the Karnataka province. It was made the capital by Kera, the father of Lokaditya, a feudatory of the Rashtrakuta Akalavarsha, in his own name. As is evident from the following verses of the Uttarapurana inscription:
"Śrīmati Lokāvitye pradhvasta-praśita-rānusanta-mase ||32|| Banavāsa-deśam akhilaṁ bhujati niṣkaṇṭakaṁ sukhaṁ suciram.
Tapitṛ-nijanāmakṛte tyāte Baṅkāpure pureṣv adhike ||34||" - Uttarapurana inscription
It is also not clear what Vatagram was and where it is now, but it was under the rule of the Gurjara, meaning it was in the kingdom of Amoghavarsha, whose kingdom extended from Malwa in the north to Kanchipuram in the south. Therefore, how can it be determined where it was located in such a vast kingdom? An inscription from the reign of Amoghavarsha, dated Saka Samvat 788, is printed in 'Epigraphia Indica', Volume 6, page 102. It states that Govindaraja, whose successor was Amoghavarsha, conquered Kerala, Malwa, Gurjara, and Chitra-kut, and the kings of all countries were in the service of Amoghavarsha. It is possible that this Chitra-kut is the same Chitra-kut where Elacharya lived, according to the mention in Shrutavatar, and where Vira Sena Swami studied the Siddhanta texts.
There is a city called Chittaldurg to the north of the Mysore state. It was previously the capital of the 'Hoysala' dynasty.
1. "Āgatya Citrakūtāt tataḥ sa bhagavān guror anujñānāt. Vāṭagāme cātrānatenakṛta-jinagṛhe sthitvā || 176||"
- Shrutavatar
"Iti bhī Viraseṇīya ṭokā sūtrāvaśinī. Bāṭagrāmapure śrīmad-gurjarāryanupālite ||6||" - J.D