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A COMPREHENSIVE HISTORY OF JAINISM
was built by the Rāṣṭrakūṭa Amoghavarṣa, who was a great Jaina patron, as we will see in the next chapter. It is also quite likely that the emperor Amoghavarṣa I himself gave grants to this Jaina temple of Candanāpuri. The undated Kalvan plates84 of the time of Paramāra Bhoja (early eleventh century) show that the Svetambara Jainas too had their monastery at Muktāpalī in Näsik district. It is apparent from that inscription that the temple of Suvratasvamin was built there centuries before the time of Bhoja I. The record under discussion further shows that the monks of the Dravida Samgha had later migrated to Nasik district. Such migrations of Jaina monks were quite common in those days, as we will see later.
The second part of the same grant registers a gift of six villages to the Jaina monastery of Uriamma in the town of Vaḍanera and the residential monastery itself to the same preceptor Vardhamana. Uriamma is a Kannada name for Jvālāmālinī, the yakṣini of Candraprabha. The villages which were given away as gift are in the Nasik district, and Vaḍanera is modern Vadner, 15 miles north-west of Malegaon. Both parts of the grant, we are told, were written by the poet Rajasekhara, who is probably to be identified with the celebrated poet of that name. The decipherers of this inscription believes that Rājasekhara, after Mahendrapala's demise, in AD 910 probably went to the royal court of Indra III. It has further been pointed out that v. 2 of the first part of the record is a mangalasloka in the Pramanasamgraha of Akalanka.85
The inscription, discussed above, not only discloses the existence of two Jaina shrines in Näsik district of Maharashtra in the early mediaeval period, but also bears testimony to the great royal patronage the religion enjoyed during the days of the Raṣṭrakūtas. In the next chapter we will have something more to say on this. It also appears that the well-known poet Rajasekhara became a Jaina during the latter part of his life, but in the absence of further evidence, we cannot be categorical about this.
The popularity of Jainism in Maharashtra in our period is further proved by the beautiful Jaina caves of Ellora, most of which were excavated by AD 800.86 I shall discuss their artistic value in the vol. II of this work. In the last chapter I had occasion to refer to the spurious Altem copperplates discovered from Kolhapur district of Maharashtra. The inscription testifies to the existence of a great Jaina temple in Kolhapur district in the ancient period. The other details in this inscription cannot be accepted without further verifi
