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118 THE JAINA ANTIQUARY.
[Vol. + which run thus:-“ May those persons who maintain this with affection enjoy long life and great prosperity! The wicked man who, without maintaining, violates this, shall incur the infamy of having slaughtered on the site of Kuruksetra and in Väranāsı seven crores of eminent sages, tawny cows, and men learned in the Vedas."8 Evidently to the generous Jainas of the middle ages there was no distinction between Kuruksetra and Sravana Belgola, and the Vedas and the Jaina Sidhānta.
That the Jainas of Sravana Belgola were organized in commercial guilds is evident not only from the above records but also from the one following in which we have clear evidence of the corporate life of the merchants of that holy place The inscription in question has been assigned to about A D 1206. In this record the Jaina guru Nayakirti-deva, who is to be distinguished from his famous namesake, who is rightly called in the same inscription " the king of asectics," is said to have given to all the merchants of the holy place Belgola, in the presence of the Senior Manikya-bhandāri Rāmadeva Nāyaka, the minister of the Hoysala king Someśvara Deva, a charter which ran as follows .
"For house-tax at Gommatapura, beginning from the year Akşaya and for as long as the moon, sun, and stars endure, the residents shall pay eight hanas (once for all) as the capital on which one hana can be realized (as interest), and live in peace This includes the mills of oilmen. In case the imposts (named in detail) of the palace came to be levied, the Acārya of the place shall himself pay and settle the matter; it is no concern of the residents Those who violate the terms of this charter are destroyers of Dharmasthala (which is evidently Śravana Belgola) If among the merchants of this holy place one or two, posing as leaders, teach the Acārya deceit, and, causing confusion by taking one thing for another, encourage him to covet a hāga and a bele and ask for more, they are traitors to the creed, traitors to the king, enemies of the Bananjigas, gamblers (nettagayaru), perpetrators of murder and plunder. If knowing this the merchants are indifferent, they alone are the
6. Ibid 397, p. 169
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