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JAIN JOURNAL
Vol. XLIV
No. 1 July
2009
THE SENVĀRAS : A JAINA FAMILY
Nādoja Prof. Hampana
The Senavāras :
The Senavāras, an indigenous Kannada family and of Jaina faith, belong to one of the ancient minor royal dynasties who figure in the inscriptions as early as from sixth century. The nomenclature of Senvāras has other variants of Senāvara, Seņavāra, Senavalla, Senamalla and Senava. For the first time they appear in an inscription of CE 690 from Koppa (No. 37), for name sake as fief of Citravāhana, the Ālupa king. However, by the dawn of eighth century, they were enjoying an elevated status of Mahāmaņdaleśvaras (vide Shikāripura epigraph no. 278 of CE 700).
According to an inscription from Hāromucaļi (Shimoga Dt., Shikāripura Tk), Bhūvarakke Arkesari (s.a. Arikesari), the Senavāra king, was ruling Mugundanāļu as a feudatory of Vinayāditya (68196), the Calukya monarch. Dosiyara (an abbreviation of Dosi Arasan) alias Dosi, son of Bhūvarakke Arkēsari, succeeded his father as chief of Mugundanādu in the rign of Kokkuli, the Calukya suzerain. Muguda continued to be a leading Jaina seat in the period of Later Cālukyas (Nagarajaiah, Hampa : Apropos Vikramāditya VI : 1999 : 39].
Immaļi Kīrtivarma (744-57) was known, in the common parlance, as Kattiyara and Kokkuli, of which the former being an abbreviation of Kīrtivarman, whereas the latter is a rare and peculiar nomen. The Cikkanandihalli (Hāvēri Dt., Byādagi Tk) charter, for instance, refers to emperor Immaļi Kārtivarma as Kokkuli, whereas
