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THE JAINA ANTIQUARY,
[Vol. IV
several assistants and the accounts section must have formed the main department of finance in the Jaina monastry at Sravana Belgola. Of course, there were some other officials as well; for mention is made of the writers (lekhaka) and the engravers (ācāri) who were entrusted with the publication of the basadi inscriptions.?
Here, within the sacred precints of the basadi the Jaina priests lived and passed away. Their practice of sallekhana must have an extremly trying and difficult feat to men as well as women who perished in this way. In A, D. 1131 one Māciyabbe" with eyes half closed, repeating the five words (or phrases),a glorious with meditating on Jinendra, magnanimous in parting from relatives, absorbed in the vow of a sanyāsı”, perished. Those who were so resolved starved from three days to one month, 4 at the end of which they must have succumbed. Great was their faith for they always cried out: “Māy the honourable supreme profound syādvāda, a fruit-bearing token. the doctrine of the lords of the three worlds, the Jaina doctrine, prevail."
1. 44, p 125
2. Note: they are Namo Arahantānam Namoh sidhānam: Namoh äyuyyām nam. Namoh ovaj-zhāyānam Namoh lo sabba såhuram
3. 53, p 132
4. 54, p 140,55. p 144, 13 p 117,5,8, p 116 Note - This religious death is described by Ayita Varmma in his Ralna Karandaka It seems to have prevailed in the Roman Empire and among the Albigenses it was called Endura Cf Lecky, History of Morals in Europe 1, p 231, II, p. 52.
