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EPIGRAPHIC AND NUMISMATIC SOURCES
[PART VIII fort at Ujjili. This temple, which was probably made of brick, appears to be now used by Virasaivas.1
Jainism was popular in the early part of the history of the Vijayanagara empire. Several temples of Jaina Tirthankaras and mana-stambhas of beauty were put up then. At Hampi (ancient Vijayanagara), the capital of the empire itself, there are quite a few Jaina temples. One of them may be the one erected, according to an inscription dated Saka 1289 (A.D. 1367), by Irugapavodeya in the reign of Bukka I. Probably the same individual constructed another temple called caityalaya in Saka 1307 (A.D. 1385) in the reign of Harihara II according to an inscription. Irugapa's brother Immadi-Bukka, a mantrin under the same ruler, constructed a caityalaya with an image of Kunthu-Tirthankara, at Kurnool in 1395. Devaraya II himself is stated to have built a caityagara of Pārsvanatha in Saka 1348 (A.D. 1426) at Vijayanagara. These temples are noted for their superstructure which is of the shape of a stepped-pyramid. Besides, the doorways in them have a pot-bellied Yakşa at the bottom of the jambs on either side. There is usually a Gaja-Laksmi figure as lalaja-bimba on the lintel of their doorways. No figure-sculptures or friezes of sculptures are seen adorning the walls of these temples.
In Tamil Nadu the earliest Jaina monuments are those which consist of dressed beds with raised pillow-like mouldings or merely dressed surface on the ground under an overhanging rock in the numerous natural caves and caverns in the inaccessible areas, mostly in the southern Districts. These beds and some of the brows of the caves contain Brähml inscriptions in Tamil language which make mention of pali, aditṭānam, etc., and they range in date from the third century B.C. to the third century A.D. We do not come across any Jaina vestiges in Kerala during the period. The next epigraphical reference to a Jaina monument is afforded by the Tirunatharkunru (South Arcot District) inscription' of about the sixth century (plate 304A). It states that it is the nifidikai of Candranandi-äśiriyar (acārya) who died by fasting for fifty-seven days. There are twenty-four rock-cut sitting Jaina images, probably representing the Tirthankaras, on top of the rock at the place.
1966.
1 Gopalakrishnamurthy, op. cit., p. 61.
Annual Report on South Indian Epigraphy, 1918, p. 66.
Ibid., 1889, Feb. 3.
Ibid., 1936, p. 32.
[See above, chapter 9.-Editor.]
1. Mahadevan, Corpus of Tamil Brahmi Inscriptions, Seminar on Inscriptions, Madras,
"South Indian Inscriptions, XVII, 1, frontispiece.
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