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FASTING UNTO DEATH ACCORDING TO THE JAINA TRADITION
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wishing, says the epigraph, to increase his own merit thanks to these pious donations. 89
In South India, in temples, etc., a number of inscriptions are found attesting cases of religious suicides. They are particularly numerous in Sravana Belgola, one of the holiest centres of the Digambaras,-where more than fifty have been counted in the 7th and 8th centuries. Many of them are now blurred; but we know of their contents thanks to Lewis Rice's and Narasimhacar's editions.91
On the hillock where the so-called Candragupta temple is built, on the even, curving surface of the rocky summit, in all directions (but mostly running in a sort of semi-circle from the southwest to the northeast of the temple, facing which they must be read), inscriptions have been engraved on the places where members of the Jaina community have fasted unto death. Most of the epigraphs are very short and stereotyped. Some others are more elaborate, and furnish details which, on the whole, tally with the prescriptions of the Paiņņayas and with a sort of versified Sanskrit summary that had been very popular in these parts of India. 92
Among these heroic believers, there have been monks and laypeople, some of them of royal families. The last inscription in this series seems to date from the beginning of the 19th cent. In 1873,
89 Ambalal Premchand Shah, 'Some Inscriptions and Images on Mount Satruñjaya', Shri Mahavir Jaina Vidyalaya Golden Jubilee Volume (Bombay, 1968) I (162–169), p. 162-164.
90 Cf. Guérinot, loc. cit. Desai, loc. cit.: inscr. n° 19, on a hill-rock, at Kopbal, mentions the samnyasana death, at that place, in the year śaka 803, of 'the illustrious teacher Sarvanandi Bhațāra'; n° 22 (Kopbal) praises the ingini-marana ‘of the great teacher Simhanandi who repaired to the summit of this lofty mountain and attained his end under the vow of Voluntary Death renouncing everything'. - Cf. p. 339-343; 345–350.
91 L. Rice, IA II 1873, Jain Inscriptions at Śravana Belagola, I, p. 265-266; II, p. 322-324; id, Inscriptions at Sravaņa Belgola a Chief Seat of the Jains (Bangalore, 1889), a revised edition of which, published by R. Narasimhacharya, has been revised anew: Epigraphia Carnatica II, Sravanabelgola, (Institute of Kannada Studies, Univ. of Mysore, 1973), of which see Intr. p. LXXIIf., and, for instance, the inscription n° 176 (West face), relating the end of Māchikabbe, a dead queen's mother.
92 The Ratna Karandaka, by Ayita-Varmmā, quoted, and translated into English, L. Rice, IA II, p. 322–323. 5 Acta Orientalia, XXXVIII
