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No. 28]
TWO JAINA INSCRIPTIONS IN TAMIL
201
songs in honour of Siva, composed by Appar and others, But her it appears to have been used in a somewhat different sense, viz., a group of sculptures for worship as indicated by the
context."
Having examined the meaning of the term tevaram, we may now ascertain its nature as designed by Puttadigal. As seen above, the two boulders meeting each other with intervening space, have themselves improvised a natural shrine. Then we have to turn to the Jaina vestiges therein. These are the figures of Gommata carved near the present inscription on one boulder, and of Parsvanatha on the other; and the fairly big sculpture of Padmavati placed in the intervening hollow. From its very nature, size and the central position, the icon of Padmavati assumes the principal role among these Jaina relics. We can now see the part played by Puttadigal in the making of this tēvāram. Being a natural formation, he, of course, had nothing to do in its creation. He simply incised the figures of Gommata and Pārsvanatha on the adjoining boulders to represent the side deities and installed the main image of Padmavati in the intermediate spot. It is for doing these things that he takes credit in the epigraph as the maker of the tevaram. We may note here with interest the position of vantage enjoyed by Padmavati; for she is the Yakahi of Parávanatha and thus occupies a subordinate place in the hierarchy of Jaina divinities."
Happily, another similar instance has come to our notice. It is an inscription at Vallimalai. This record, which is styled 'A', is similarly carved on the rock of a natural cave, below a group of sculptures, and speaks of the foundation of the Jaina shrine (vasati), evidently referring to the cave itself with Jaina relics, by the Ganga prince Rajamalla
INSCRIPTION II
This epigraph is incised on a beam of the mahamandapa in front of the central shrine in the temple of Adinatha Tirthankara at Ponnur, a village in the Wandiwash taluk of the North Arcot District. The inscription is slightly damaged and comprises two lines. The soript is both Grantha and Tamil. The characters are late. Medial short and long e are distinguished. Medial ai is denoted by placing either single-looped two spirals or one double-looped spiral behind
1 Tamil Lexicon (Universiy of Madras, 1929), p. 2069.
As the precise significance of the expression tevaram used here is not certain, we may take into consideration other possibilities. According to the lexicographer tevaram also means deity worshipped privately in a house." Further, it may not be unreasonable to connect it with the Sanskrit devagara, in which case it would magn 'a shrine'. Use of the word dahara in the sense of 'a shrine' is found in an 11th century Kannada inscription in the Bellary District; SII, Vol. IX, part i, No. 115. The expression davhard is current in the Marathi language in the sense of 'a shrine for private worship.'
B. C. Bhattacharya: Jaina Iconography, p. 82.
Above, Vol. IV, pp. 140-41.
This was one of the peculiar aspects of Jainism in the Tamil country, as I have noticed in the course of my survey of the Jaina antiquities. The hill tracts with natural caverns and rocky sholters had a great attraction for the Jaina teacher and the devotee who transformed them into sacred resorts and contres of religious practices. Besides the two places dealt with above, a large number of hill spots invested with Jaina rolics has come to light so far; see An. Rep. on S. I. Epigraphy for 1923, p. 3; above, Vol. IV, p. 136; Mad. Ep. Rep. for 1887, p. 3; etc. From the association of the 'triple umbrella,' which is a characteristic emblem of the Jina, with the rocky beds at Sedarampattu in the North Aroot District (An. Rep. on S. I. Epigraphy for 1939-40 to 1942-43, p. 11), it can now be safely asserted that at least some of similar couches, popularly known as the Pañchapindava beds', found in a large number in many parts, were the creations of Jaina monks who were pioneers of the faith in the Tamil country. For a detailed description of these relics see Proceedings and Transactions of Third Oriental Conference, pp. 275 ff.
This was copied by the Madras Epigraphist's office in 1929. It is registered as No. 416 of Appendix B in the year's collection and briefly noticed on p. 88 of the year's Report.
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