Jainism and Karnataka Culture

Author(s): S R Sharma
Publisher: Karnataka Historical Research Society Dharwar

Page 31

HISTORICAL SURVEY
the rock, variously named as Candragiri, Kațavapra, and Kalbappu, at Śravaņa Belgoļa in Mysore.' In it we are told that:
Bhadrabāhu-svāmin-of lineage rendered illustrious by a succession of great men who came in regular descent from the venerable supreme rși Gautama-gañadhara, his immediate disciple Lohārya, Jambhu, Vişnudeva, A parājita, Govardhana, Bhadrabāhu, Viśākha, Proşţila, Krttikāıya, Jayanāma, Siddartha, Buddhila and other teachers-who was acquainted with the true nature of the eightfold great omens, and was a seer of the past, present, and the future, having learnt from an omen and foretold in Ujjaini a calamity lasting for a period of twelve years, the entire samgha ( or community ) set out from the North to the South, and reached by degrees a country....filled with happy people,.... gold, .... and herds of buffaloes, goats, and sheep.
*Then separating himself from the Samgha an Ācārya, Prabhācandra by name,...desiring to accomplish Samādhi the goal of penance associated with right conduct, on this high-peaked mountain-Kațavapra, bade farewell to and dismissed the Sangha in its entirety, and in company with a single disciple, mortifying his body on the wide expanse of the cold rocks, accomplished ( Samādhi ).
* And, in course of time, seven hundred Rșis or Saints ( similarly ) accomplished ( Samädhi ).'? The value and implications of this epigraph have been discussed at considerable length by the late Mr. R. Narasimhachar, in the Epigraphia Carnatica. Hence it will be superfluous to reconsider the question here. The conclusion of the late Dr. V. A. Smith, regarding the plausibility of the persistent tradition about Candragupta Maurya having accompanied
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E. C. II, p. 71. Ibid. Tr. pp 1-2. E. C. II, Introd., pp. 36-40