Jainism and Karnataka Culture

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

Page 50

JAINISM AND RARNATAKA CULTURE
fact that the same inscription also speaks of another Jaina celebrity, Vasucandra, as having attained fame as 'BālaSaraswati' at the Calukya capital. Likewise, another epigraph states that Vādiraja, also a Jaina teacher, was honoured by Jayasimha I at whose capital he too won his celebrity.88
Raņarāga, son of Jayasimha, and his son Pulakesi I, both appear to have kept up this tradition of patronage of the Jainas. Under the former, Durgāśakti, evidently a Jaina, made a grant to the Samkha Jinalaya at Puligere (LakşméŚwar ).* The latter endowed a Jaina temple at Ālaktanagara; and the inscription recording this fact states: “The lord Satyāśraya in his piety bestowed a field (and) a charter worthy of that shrine of Jina." His successor was Kirtivarma I; and according to the earliest extant Old Kannada inscription at Dhārwar he too made grants to the Jainas: “Having preferred their request to the supreme lord, (Kirtivarma) gave (a grant) to the temple of Jinendra for the purpose of providing the oblation and unbroken rice, and perfumes, and flowers, etc." Similarly, another Sanskrit inscription states, “By him, the illustrious one, when requested to augment (the endowments to ) the dānaśāla etc. of the Jinālaya which.... Gāmunda had caused to be built, there was given a field, etc."99 But of all the Calukya inscriptions that of Pulakesi II at Aiboļe is the most famous. In it, Ravikirti, the Jaina poet who composed the inscription, says, "This stone temple of Jinendra which is the abode of glory was caused to be constructed by the learned Ravikirti, who had acquired the greatest favour of that same Satyāśraya whose commands were restrained (only ) by the ( limits of) the three oceans. The accomplished Ravikirti himself is the composer of this eulogy, and the person who caused the temple to
88 Cf p Car. II, Introd., p. 41. 89 Fleet, S. and O, C. Inscriptions, Ind. Ant. VII, p. 110. 90 Ibid. p. 215; Cf. Dynasties of the Kanarose Districts, p. 20. 91 Fleet, Ind, Ant. XI, p 7. 92 Ibid.