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No. IV ] SRAVANA BELGOLA-ITS SECULAR IMPORTANCE
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inscriptions assigned to that date, pledged themselves to annually for as long as the sun, moon, and stars endure, certain specified dues, to provide for flowers for Gommatadeva and Pārsvadeva. These merchants, we may observe, were endowed with all good qualities", and are said in the two inscriptions to have been "of the holy place Belugula ' It is interesting to observe in this connection that it was not only men who thus gave evidence of their devoutness, but women as well. One of the two records expressly relates that To provide for flowers for Gummatadeva, all the merchants of the holy place Belugula, including Gummi Sett's Dasaiya, Lokeya-Sahani's daughter Somavve and all the citizens (samsta-nakharangalu), having purchased certain lands (specified with their location) from the assembly, made over the same to the garland-maker as a perpetual gift 3
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The merchants Mosale, which seems to have been perhaps a neighbouring place, too, showed their devotion in a like manner. For in about A. D. 1185 the merchants of Mosale pledged themselves to give annually, as a perpetual gift, certain specified amounts, for the eight kinds of worship of the Tîrthakaras set up by that large-hearted Jaina merchant leader of Sravana Belgoļa, Basavi Setti.*
3. Ibid, 241, 242, pp. 103, 104.
4.
236, p. 101.
5.
235, p. 101.
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The fact that Basavi Setți is called in one of the records the vadda-vyavahari or Senior-most Merchant,5 suggests that the merchants of Mosale had gradations of honour amongst them. We can see this better when we examine a record which specifically mentions the highest civic official of Śravana Belgola This inscrip
tion has been assigned to about A. D. 1179. It relates that Malli Setti, the Pattanasvami (or Lord Mayor) of Gommaṭapura, along with Ganḍanarayana Setți and the group of chief merchants (mukhyavāda nakhara-samuha), having assembled made an agreement which is registered in the record. The broad-mindedness of the Sravana Belgola merchants is seen from the concluding lines of this epigraph
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