________________
JAINISM IN SOUTH INDIA (AD 600-1000)
173
inscription therefore testifies to the existence of a Jaina temple in this part of Guntur district in A.P. in the seventh century AD.
A Jaina recordo dated in the thirtyseventh year of Visnuvardhana III found from Sattenapalle taluk of Guntur district refers to a temple of Jaina at Munugodu. There is also a reference to a muni called Suvratatirtha. It further mentions that a certain person called Boyugaţta, a servant of king Gonka, effected some repairs to this temple, which was built by one Aggoti. Another short epigraph in the same stone slab mentions Mahāmandalesvara Gomkaya, evidently the person of the same name of the earlier epigraph. It registers a gift of land to the Sita Jinesvarālaya at Munugodu. Another inscription of the same slab refers to the gift of land to a vasadi called Pșthivītilaka, evidently a Jaina temple built by an earlier eastern Cālukya king. It also mentions a certain Billama Nayaka.
No eastern Cālukya Jaina inscription, pertaining to the ninth century ad is known. We have, however, three Jaina inscriptions of the time of Amma II Vijayāditya who ruled in the middle mid-tenth century AD.98 The first is known as the Maliyapundi grant and the other two Kuluchumbarru and Masulipatnam grants. The Maliyapundi grant99 was originally discovered from Madanur, ten miles from Ongole, which is now the headquarters of a district of the same name in A.P. The inscription opens with a beautiful verse addressed to Jinendra. The donee was a jinālaya called Katakābharaṇa, founded by Durgarāja, an officer of Amma II. This temple, according to the inscription was situated to the south of Dharmavuramu (Dharmapurī) in Nellore district. Durgarāja bore the designation Katakarāja, which suggests that he was a superintendent of the royal camp. At the request of this officer, king Vijayāditya, i.e., Amma II, made a gift of the village of Maliyapūņdi for the benefit of the temple in Saka 867 i.e., AD 945 which was the twelfth year of his reign. This Jaina temple was in charge of Śrī Mandiradeva, the disciple of Divākara, and grand-disciple of Jinanandin belonging to the Yāpaniya Sangha, Nandigaccha, and Kotimaduvagana. The language of the inscription indicates that king Amma II himself had great reverence both for the Jaina temple there and Māndiradeva, its manager. The preceptor and grand-preceptor of Māndiradeva, who belonged to the famous Yapanīya Samgha, were evidently very learned Jaina ascetics and lived in the ninth century AD.
The second Jaina inscription during the reign of Amma II is an
