Jain Journal 1986 07

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

Page 19

JAIN JOURNAL
Rājādhiraja's Inscription :
The inscription dated in the 10th regnal year of Rajadhiraja II (1173 A.D.) records grant of four mā of land along with some house sites (nattam) at Chittamur as Pallicchandam to the Jaina Palli of the same village, by one Sengeni Mummalaraya, who is credited with the conquest of the Pandya country.11
The donor of this grant was none other than the Sambhuvaraya chieftain Sengeni Ammaiappan alias Annan Pallavarayan who accepted the sovereignty of Rajadhiraja II.
The Sambhuvarayas were feudatories of the Colas, ruling over an area comprising the modern districts of Chittoor, North Arcot, South Arcot and Chingleput. During the reign of Rajadhiraja II, a civil war broke out in the Pandya country and the timely intervention of Sengeni Ammaippan on the orders of the Cola emperor, restored Kulasekhara on the Pandya throne. Later on, Kulasekhara with the support of the Ceylon king Parakramabahu, rose in revolt against the Colas, hence Rajadhiraja sent a powerful army under the same Sambhuvaraya chief and captured the Pandyan territory.12 It was this victory over the Pandya earned the chieftain the title “Pandyanadukondan'. The inscription from Chittamur echoes the same political episode wherein he is styled as Pandyanadukondan Sengeni Mummalaraya.
The epigraphic records from Chittamur throw some new light on the religious history of this region and supplement to our knowledge of the Cola conquest of the Pandyan territory. Hitherto, it was believed that Jainism had its origin at Chittamur only in the late medieval period, 13 but the foregoing study would push back the antiquity of Jainism to the 9th century A.D. The magnificient sculptures of Neminatha, Adinatha, Parsvanatha and Bahubali, carved on the boulder in the Malainatha temple, exhibiting typical early Cola style of art of the 9th century A.D. corraborates the date arrived at from the epigraphs.
The patronage extended by the Colas and their feudatories, partilarly the Sambhuvarayas, to the Jaina sect is obvious from these records. Inspite of their adherence to Saivism, liberal grants had been made to Jaina institutions, and the Chittamur temple received its due
11 SII., Vol. VII, No. 829 ; ARE., 202/1902. 12 K. A Nilakanta Sastri, op. cit., pp. 367-373. 18 Jain Shrines of Tamilnadu, p. 17.