Jaina Corpus of Koppala Inscriptions X rayed

Author(s): Nagarajaiah Hampa
Publisher: Ankita Pustak

Page 85

66 / Jaina Corpus of Koppa!a
Somadevasūri and his classic Yaśas-tilaka are so famous [vide former vice-chancellor of Gowahti university, Krishnakant-Handiqui's Yaśastilaka and Indian culture (1949)]. Somadeva was earlier patronised by Arikesari, vassal of the Rāștrakūtas. Somadevasūri completed his work at Gangadharam [Andhra Pradesh] in the year 959 C.E., The king Arikesari-III, after laving the feet of Somadevasūri, made a gift of a village in the year 966 C.E., to the Subhadhăma-Jinālaya built by his father, Baddega. [SMHD. 2.33. No. 7, Parabhani Copper plate, ś. 888 (A.D. 966) and AIP Karimnagar No. 4 (AR 1966 No. 169)]. Somadevasūri wrote another work called Nīti-Vākyāmrta.
Samadevasūri was a contemporary of Pampa (940 C.E.), another great Jaina poet who has written two EpicsĀdipurāņam and Vikramārjuna Vijayam, Campu-kāvyas in Kannada. Pampa was a court-poet of Arikesari-11, king of the Vemulavāda Cālukyas, feudatories of the Răştrakūtas.
Jina-Vallabha, Pampa's younger brother, commissioned Tribhuvana-Tilaka-Jinālaya in the year C.E. 950. He has also written an inscription, containing Sanskrit, Kannada and Telugu verses, engraved on the Rşabhagiri hill at the outskirts of the village Kurkyāl, very near Gangadharam of Somadevsūri [I.A.P. Karimnagar dt, No. 3.C.950 C.E.] On the same Rşabhādri is found, in a bas relief, a huge sculpture of the Cakreśvari and the sculpture of six Jinas, three on the right and three on the left side of Cakreśvari Yaksi, each abovt six feet tall. This shows that the area in and around Gangādharam, associated with Somadeva sūri, was a Jaina centre. Inspite of it, the great ācārya has selected Koppaļa for his final destiny means that Koppaļa was considered an important holy place for Samadhi-marana, on par with Sravaņa-Belago!a, a sacred sepulchral hill.
There is also another charter, included in K.34, mentioned above, which is dated C.E. 1010-11, eulogising the poetic excellence of Somadevasūri. It is rather unfortunate that both the epigraphs, of A.D. 984 and A.D. 1010-11 are fragments and incomplete.