Jain Journal 1999 01

SR No.: 520133
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: Jain Bhawan Publication
Publisher: Jain Bhawan Publication
Publication Year: 1999
Total Pages: 42
Language: English
Classification: Magazine, India_Jain Journal, & India
File Size: 3 MB

Page 32

106
JAIN JOURNAL: Vol-XXXIII, No. 3 January 1999 2. Sāviyabbe-the warrior (C. 980 A.D.)
Amemorial stone of about tenth century, near the Bāhubali temple on the small hill also called Candragiri at Śravanabelagola, though the latter portion of it is damaged, has registered an historically important episode. It has brilliantly captured the intrepidity ofa Jaina lady.
Sāviyabbe accompanied her husband to the battlefield and fell fighting by his side. The incident seems to have been taken place at Bagiyūr in about C.E.980. It is very interesting to note that the undated inscription recording the incident has also the sculpture representing Sāviyabbe riding on a horse and flourishing a sword, with a man, apparently aiming at her with some weapon held at the level of his waist is sitting on an elephant opposite to Sāviyabbe.
The incomplete and partially erassed charter successfully portrays the necessary facts about the life of Sāviyabbe and her parents Bāyika and Jābayye. Bāyika, a warrior of eminence, had faithfully followed his master in his war operations and thus had spread his fame. Māduvara and Doyilamma were the two elder brothers of Sāviyabbe alias Sāyibbe.
Lokavidyadhara alias Udaya-vidyādhara, son of Dhora, was the husband of Sāviyabbe. Evidently Vidyādhara, as the very name suggests, was a scion of Ganga dynasty. Vidyādhara is a common and acclaimed name and a title of the Gangas. Vidyādhara, one of the great-grand-sons of Būtugua-II and the only son of ArumuļidevaGāvabbarasi, had the name of Rājāditya alias Lokavidyadhara.
However, the epigraph under discussion has registered the attainments of Sāviyabbe who became celebrated in the world as an abode of wisdom and a collection of dharma. Are there any women who can be compared with her and with Sitä? When it is said that the world-renowned Loka-vidyadhara, son of Dhora, liberal to the learned, was her husband, can any other person be compared with her in glory? Know ye, that in the śrāvaka-dharma, duties of lay persons, Sāviyabbe was the celebrated Śrāvaki, lay woman, Revati herself, there being no other to compare with her, in wifely conduct Sītā herself, in beauty Devaki herself, in greatness Arundhati herself, in pure devotion to Jinendra, Jinaśāsanadevatā, the goddess attendant on Jina herself.
The incognito author of the epigraph, in a frame of a small Campūkāvya, a poem with an admixture of prose and verse, with four kāndas and one utpalamāla verses (there are two more verses in the