Jain Journal 2000 04

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

Page 32

JAIN JOURNAL: Vol-XXXIV, No. 4 April 2000 receptive to new ideas, warmly welcomed Yapaniya. The Yapaniya sangha started its chapter in Karnataka at Kalyāņa olim Basavakalyāṇa (Bidar Dt), in C.E. 159, and by fifth century it had assumed the vulnarable position of receiving royal reception by way of frequent endowments from the Early Kadambas of Banavāsi. Later on, the Yapaniyas took virtually every sphere of life by storm.
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By the time of the Calukyas, the Yapaniya sangha had prospered so rapidly that it had reached its apex. The Calukyas respected and encouraged all sects, but the Yapaniyas seemed to have received more attention.
After the sustained royal patronage of banavāsi Kadambas, the Yapaniya sangha never looked back. It grew from strength to strength upto the period of Kalacuris and Cālukyas. The period between 980 and 1180 C.E. was the golden age of Yapanīya sangha; that was the best of time, and the year after 1184 was the worst of time for them.
"Male and female ascetics of Yapaniya sangha had their listeners and adherents, from the king to common citizen. Festivals and modes of worship, pilgrimage centres were common to Digambara tradition. Yapaniya pontiffs and high ranking teachers with their amazing achievements and mastery in the realms of philosophy, logic, grammar, yoga, spirituality, literature, medicine and other akin branches of knowledge, have been revered most by one and all, Jains and nonJains alike. Many epigraphs mention Yapaniya preceptors and their pupil of three to four generations. Thus, a systematic and authenticated genealogy of the illuminating personality of Yapaniya ācāryas can easily be traced. There were many noted centres of this sect during the Calukya age" (Kamala Hampana : 1995. 30-31]
The Yapaniyas transmitted a very rich Nirgrantha cultural tradition exercising their sway for over eight hundred years in Karnataka. Like their predecessors, the Calukyas widened unstinted patronage to Jainism: "The Yapaniyas seem to have eventually merged into the larger Digambara community by which they were surrounded, their tendencies toward a more ecumenical Jainism died with them" (Jaini, : 15]
Bibliography
Bhavanendra Kumar, S.A.: (ed) Jinamañjarī, Vol. 10, No. 2, 1994.
Desai, P.B.: Jainism in South India and some Jaina Epigraphs; Solapur,
1957. Jawaharlal, G: Jainism in Andhra, 1994.