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Jaina Sangha / 207
temples of stone in C. E. 897-98 at Hombuja, which continue to exist even now. Her liberal gifts to the sustenance of the Jaina places of worship that she founded at Hombuja, the metropolis of the Sāntaras, are true expressions of impeccable and deeprooted devotion. Her mother becoming a Jaina nun was a turning point in her life. After contemplating beyond the veil, Pāliyakka, having the head purified by the sacred and fragrant water of Jina, took the veil.
7.9.2. An epigraph on a boulder infront of a natural cave from Vēdal (TN : North Arcot Dt, Wandiwash Tk), dated C. E. 885, illustrates that a palli, place of Jaina recluse, existed exclusively for the Jaina nuns. A unique feature of this Vidal monastery in Singapuranādu is that there were 900 Jaina nuns and they had a seperate University of their own. The inscription (SII. vol. III. No. 92.C.E. 885. Vēdal] also records that a dispute between the two mother superior, Kanakavira kurattiyār (Sk. guru-stri), chief of 500 lady pupils, and another group of 400 nuns, which was amicably settled [Ekambaranathan : 1987 : 287].
7.9.2.1. Nun Kanakavira kurattiyār alias Mādēvi Arandimangalam was a female disciple of Gunakirti Bhatāra. The very fact that a cloister solely for nuns and lady students, to the fantastic number of almost a thousand, existed in the late ninth century speaks volumes of the amount of freedom of monachism and education that the women folk enjoyed and encouraged in the Jaina sangha.
7.9.2. Building temples, donating grant of land, garden, oil mills and other items to their perpetual maintenance etc was not the only thing that the devouts caused. It was just one of the aspects of the royal patronage. Favour and support to the growth and sustenance of scholarship, literature, art, architecture, and culture was extended. Even the act of building shrines was job potential and involved employment
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