Jain Journal 1985 07

Author(s): Jain Bhawan Publication
Publisher: Jain Bhawan Publication

Page 27

JAIN JOURNAL
The Jainas of Polal came to know of this and the trouble that was brewing over them from the Saivaites. They buried the two images of the inner sanctrum on the Lake side and left Polal for safety. The Saivaite rebels came to Polal and destroyed the magnificent stone temple and other images. There were many temples in the garden in which Tirthankara images had been installed by Jainas. All those temples were destroyed including the Brahmi inscription set up by Kundakunda. Heaps of shattered stone and bricks lay on the ground which were removed by people mostly Saivaites for their building purposes.
According to Rev. Figredo, a number of damaged Tirthankara images were discovered near the St. Thomas Mount which is within the limits of old Mylapore. This Mount was originally a Jaina Monastery where ascetics lived for meditation and other austerities. There were several temples around the Mount probably built in the 1st and the subsequent centuries of the Christian era.
After a few centuries probably in the 10th or 11th centuries A.D. the Jainas shifted the two blackstone images and installed them in enclosures within the remnants of the destroyed original temple. The Adinath image was installed in an enclosure built by the Jainas attached to the mandapam or garbhagyha and that of Padmavati in a small enclosure in front of the Adinatha image within the mandapam, which was originally used by devotees for meditation and prayer. Among the destroyed images of the temple was found an image of Adinatha in white stone with its nose and the lower portion of the right arm mutilated or broken. It was kept underneath a small tree within the prakara of the present temple. The small mandapam and the damaged white stone image of Adinatha were the only remnants of the destroyed original temple founded by Kundakundacarya in the 1st century A.D.
The Saivaites who destroyed the original temple is said to be responsible for the mutilation of the white stone image of Adinatha, which is the only material evidence to prove that the rebels had played havoc at Puyal in the 7th century A.D.
Peace and brotherhood were established between Saivaites, Vaisnavites and Jainas probably in the 10th or 11th century A.D. through the efforts of religious leaders and heads of the respective communities. A few Vaisnava and Siva temples were built at Puyal and some of the dilapidated temples could be seen there even today.