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Gommates vara Commemoration Volume
36
power and pelf when life itself is so uncertain and ephemeral. The realisation of reality turned his mind from the world which he renounced altogether." He left Podanapura," his capital, went to the nearby forest, took the vows of asceticism, and stood for full one year in one place, without food or drink, nay, absolutely motionless, ultimately obtaining Kaivalya and then Nirvana, being thus the first to do so in the present cycle.
It is said that Emperor Bharata had erected a life-size golden image of the saint Bahubali on the spot, outside the city of Podanapura, where he had practised penance, but which, in the course of time, had become quite invisible and untraceable.16 It is also said that a more or less similar image was later installed by Rāvana, the King of Ceylon, on the Vindhyagiri." It was, however, early in the last quarter of the 10th century A. D. that Camundaraya, the illustrious general of the Ganga Kings of Mysore, caused the present Gommata statue to be sculptured by Aristanemi, a superb artist, under the guidance of his own gurus, Ajitasena Acarya and Nemicandra Siddhänta Cakravartin, in order to fulfil the pious wish of his own mother, Kajala Devi. "The image marks the site of Sravanabelgola, the chief seat of the Jainas in South India from very early times. The village lies picturesquely between two rocky hills, one larger than the other, which stand up boldly from the plain and are covered with huge boulders." As a foreign visiter has rightly remarked, 'In the whole beautiful state of Mysore, it would be hard to find a spot where the historic and the picturesque clasp hands so firmly as here.' 19
In fact, as Sir Mirza Ismail observed, 'Sravapabelgola is not merely of sectarian interest it is a national treasure'"'It is not only a holy place for the Jainas, but also a place of cultural and historical importance to the students of South Indian history." Another eminent scholar has it, 'Sravņabelgola has a very romantic history. From all Jaina accounts in literature and epigraphs, it was originally a bare hill in an uninhabited country, but in time it became a Tirtha or place of pilgrimage, a Karma-kşetra for Siksa and Diksa, or a University of piety and culture, and even a religious state or Samsthanam, somewhat like the Vaticangrand sublimation of mere, forbidding earth by the aspiring, advancing and self-purifying soul of Man.'" Yet another avers, 'Above all, to my mind, Sravapabelgola is most typically Indian, for it enshrines the spirit of sacrifice in the cause of Spirit which alone is life that faith is transcendental; it seeks liberation of the Soul from the trammels of mundane existence; it stands for the ultimate triumph of Spirit over matter. It is the shining beacon of life across the wasteland of death, life that is enduring and eternal." On 14th March, 1925, on the occasion of a former Mahamastakabhiseka celebration, the then Mahārāja of Mysore had said, "This is the holy spot so sacred to the Muniśvara Gommata whom tradition represents to be the younger brother of Bharata, the eponymous Emperor of Bharatavarsa. The land of Mysore symbolises Gommata's spiritual
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