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JAINISM AND KARNATAKA CULTURE
gurus having the titles of Lalitakirti and Carukirti Panditācārya, though originally subject to the Chief Pontiff at Sravaņa Belgola, claimed according to the testimony of Buchanan, a status equal to the chief. 146 The Bunts are a proud race and their peculiar law of inheritance adds to their isolation. The rulers as well as the mass of Jaina population of South Kanara being of this class, it was natural for their Pontiffs to claim independence, just as the secular chiefs attempted to do on the fall of Vijayanagara. 147
Lalitakirti is described as belonging to the Kālogra-gaña which must be identical with (or a branch of) the Pustakagachcha , as he is also stated to be of the Paņasôgê lineage of Dêśigaņa. 148 The Jaina priests of Hottage (Pustaka-gachcha) claimed exclusive jurisdiction over the bastis of Paņsôge and Talekāveri, which Rice thinks must have been the limits of the Cangālva kingdom of Coorg. 149 Since Lalitakirti belonged to the Hottage gachcha and was also the family priest of the Wodeyars of Kārkaļ, it is natural to suppose that his influence below the ghāts must have lasted as long as the supremacy of these kings. But the real pontiff of South Kanara must be considered the Panditācārya of Buchanan, whose fuller title was and still is Cårukirti Panditācarya. He has his seat now at Muļbidrê. The Vêņür inscription which records the erection of the colossus there, by order of Cārukīrti, calls him “the sun of the firmament of the Désigana and the moon in the milkocean of the pontificate of the town named Belguļa. " 150
The pontiff of Belgoļa is, of course, by tradition the Chief Pontiff of most of the Jainas of South India. An inscription at Nāgamangala mentions Laksmīsêna Bhattāraka, Jaina guru of Śravaņa Belgoļa who claimed to be the lord of the thrones of
146 Cf."Ibid., pp. 110, 112-13; Buchanan, op. cit., p. 79. 147 Of. Sturrock, op. cit., p. 189. 148 Rangãohárya, Inscriptions of the Madras Presidency II SK 215;
Holtasch, op. cit., p. 110. 149 Rice, op. cit., p. 142; Coorg Inscriptions, Ep. Car, I, p. 13. 150 Hultasch, op, cit. p. 113,
