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128 : SHRI MAHAVIRA JAINA VIDYALAYA GOLDEN JUBILEE VOLUME
penance. He was beheaded by Rāma, but immediately thereafter he was turned into a Siva-linga, now called Dhumreśvara. This tradition is at least seven hundred years old; for it is mentioned in a stone inscription of the Yādava period fixed in the front wall of the temple of Laksmana on the hill of Rāmţek. His name occurs there in a slightly different form, viz., Dhumrākṣa.10 We learn from Bhavabhūti's Uttararāmacarita that the Dandakāranya containing large hills and dales infested by dreadful ferocious beasts stretched southward from the place of Sambūka's hermitage up to the confines of Janasthāna, on the bank of the Godāvarī.11 The situation of Rāmțek thus answers to the description in the Paümacariya. That the place was known by the name of Rāmagiri in the fourth century A.D. is clear from the Rddhapur plates of the Vākāțaka dowager queen Prabhāvatigupta, who made one of her grants there near the pădukās of Rāmagirisvāmin (i. e. Ramacandra).12 Kalidasa also describes that the hill of Rāmagiri had the venerable pădukās of Raghupati (Rama) installed on it13. The way of the Cloud-messenger described in the Meghadūta suits Rāmțek and no other place, 14 and there are reasons to suppose that Kālidāsa sojourned for some time in the neighbouring Vākāțaka capital Nandivardhana, which lies only about three miles from Rämtek.15 The hill of Rāmțek was thus undoubtedly known as Rāmagiri in the fourth century A.D. and it is not unlikley that the place was known by the same name a century or two before in the age of Vimalasūri. In describing the hill of Rāma's sojourn as Rāmagiri which lay to the north of Dandakāranya, Vimalasūri was not simply drawing on his imagination, but appears to have known the tradition about Ramtek.
In one respect, however, Vimalasūri's description appears to be imaginary. He tells us that at the instance of Räma several temples of Jinendras were erected on the hill, which later became known as Rāmagiri. There are now no remains of any temples of the Jaina
10 See M RT U EEIFTEST: 974 : High: layiqHETSTIST 7914
fa: 11 Ep. Ind., Vol. XXX, p. 17. See एतानि खलु सर्वभूतरोमहर्षणान्युन्मत्तचण्डश्वापदकुलसंकुलगिरिगह्वराणि जनस्थानपर्यन्तदीर्धारण्यानि दक्षिणां
fra i Act. II. 12 See Thattaifa: Tqara I C.I.I., Vol. V, p. 35. 13 See qre: gal gafavec Heli V. 12. 14 See Studies in Indology, Vol. I, pp. 15 f. 15 Ibid., pp. 19 f.
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