Ancient Jaina Hymns

Author(s): Charlotte Krause
Publisher: Oriental Institute

Page 97

REMARKS ON THE TEXTS
(74) Modhera (modern Modhera near Baman
vada in Baroda State), (75) Dadhipadra (modern Dahod near Godhra
in Gujarat),
(76) Karkarapura (modern Karakal near Mudbidri in South Kanara)'
It is obvious that the above sacred names have not been arranged according to any fixed scheme, but are strung together as they presented themselves to the memory of the poet, and as metrical exigency demanded. Though most of the places belong to Gujarat, with which the poet must have been particularly familiar from wanderings there, still he seems to have endeavoured to incorporate names of places situated in as many parts of India, or, for the matter of that, in as many parts of the universe as possible. In his pious zeal and his firm belief in the pertinent Jaina dogmata regarding cosmography, he has thus mixed up genuine geographical names with purely mythological ones, such as Meru, Vaitādhya, Astāpada, Kundala, Mānusottara, Rucaka, and Nandisvara, explicitly referring to temples situated in the realms of all the four classes of gods.?
Yet among the remaining references, a great number of names of even now popular Jaina places of pilgrimage can be recognized at first sight, such as Shatrunjaya, Girnar, Broach, Mangrol, Ajara, Sirpur,
01) Karakal has long since been "famous for the Jaina and Buddhist pilgrims", according to Nundoo Lal De, p. 93; vide also Tirthiva'i-pravāsa, No. 416..
(2) Viz., (a) Bhavanaväsin, in the underworld, (6) Vyantara, in the aver between the underworld and the world of men, (c) Jyotişka, in the lower strata of the atmosphere, and (d) Vaimánika, in layers above the latter in movable "viminas".
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