Some Inscriptions And Images In Mount Satrunjaya

SR No.: 269245
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: Ambalal P Shah
Publisher: Ambalal P Shah
Total Pages: 12
Language: English
Classification: Article
File Size: 8 MB

Page 4

164 : SHRI MAHAVIRA JAINA VIDYALAYA GOLDEN JUBILEE VOLUME
glass eyes, and studded metal pieces on different parts of the body of Puņdarīkasvāmi and the two smaller figures. This is a practice which has undermined the beauty of many a Jaina sculpture, old or new. The inscription reads as under:
(?) sfigmaany jest
ध्यात्वा शत्रुजये शुद्धथन् सल्लेखाध्यानसंयमैः॥१॥ श्रीसंगमसिद्धमुनिर्विद्याध( )रकुलनभस्तलमृगांकः।। दिवसैश्चतुर्भिरधिकं मासमुपोण्याचलितसत्त्वः ॥२॥ वर्षे सहस्रे षष्टयां चतुरन्वितयाधिके दिवमगच्छत् । (#hafa 3774€TUOTATÈ surfactati ll 11 अम्मेयकः शुभं तस्य श्रेष्ठिरोधेयकात्मजः।
पुंडरीकपदासंगि चैत्यमेतदचीकरत् ॥ ४॥ चतुर्भिः कलापकं ।। According to the inscription, Muni Sangamasiddha, moon of the firmament of the Vidyadhara-Kulas, meditated on mount satruñjaya, before Yugādideva (Ādinātha) and Pundarika. Having purified himself by the practice of austerities and sallekhana, observing dauntlessly his fast for a month and four days, attained to Heaven on Monday the second day of the dark half of the month of Märgaśīrṣa, in V. S. 1064. Śreșthi Ammeyaka, son of Rodheyaka, caused to build this shrine and (consecrate) the image, for his own merit.
This Muni Sangamasiddha is probably the grand-teacher of Pädalipta, the author of Nirvāņakalikā.6
This is the earliest known inscribed and dated image available at Śatruñjaya. It is important also as a fine specimen of art.
Fig. 2, preserved in a cell on the right side of the northern part of the circumambulatory passage of the main shrine, represents a householder, i.e. a śrāvaka, a Jaina lay worshipper. The inscription on its pedestal shows that this is a statue (a portrait sculpture ?) of śreșthi Nārāyaṇa.
5 One of the four ancient lineages of śvetāmbara Jaina monks. 6 Compare the colophon of Nirvāņakalikā, wrongly ascribed to the
first Pädalipta, who is said to have flourished in c. 2nd century A.D. But Dr. U. P. Shah, in his “Iconography of the Jaina Goddess Ambika", Journal of the University of Bombay, September 1940, p. 159, f. n. 6, pointed out that Nirvāņakalika was a work of c. eleventh century A.D.