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ŚRAVANA BELGOĻA-ITS SECULAR IMPORTANCE
BY
Dr. B. A. Saletore, M. A., Ph. D. (Lond.)
As is well known Śravana Belgola has been considered by the Jainas all over India as one of their most sacred spots in this country. Indeed, its religious importance has been so great that few have ever cared to enquire of its secular position in the civic life of the people. It is the object of this paper to show how for centuries this sacred place of Jaina pilgrimage was also noted for its material wealth. The remarks that follow are based on some of the many inscriptions that have been discovered in and around Śravana Belgoļa.
“In the whole beautiful State of Mysore it would be hard to find a spot, where the historic and the picturesque clasp hands so firmly as here"? This opinion of a modern foreign traveller is certainly justified. For the Jainas, much more than the Hindus. had a rare conception of scenic beauty and a gift of selecting delightful spots which were suited for religous meditation as well as for furthering the cause of material existence. Sravana Belgola was essentially one such spot.
That even in the earliest times the Jainas were aware of this double-sided importance of their centres is evident from one of the oldest stone inscriptions on Candragiri or Cikkabetta at Śravana Belgola. This epigraph, which has been rightly assigned to about A. D. 600, informs us that the great Bhadrabāhu-svāmi, having learned from an omen and foretold in Ujjain a calamity lasting for a period of twelve years, led the entire sangha (or community) to the south." and reached by degrees a country counting many hundreds of villages and filled with happy people, wealth,
1. Workman, W. H and W. J., Through Town and Jungle, p 80 (London, 1904); Narasimhacharya, Epigraphia Camtica, II, Intr. p 2.
