Jainism and Karnataka Culture

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

Page 57

HISTORICAL SURVEY
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śwara II a Jaina feudatory of his reconstructed these temples.110 Evidently Jainism had not been worsted. It gathered up all its strength and made a final stand under Bijjala Kalacuri whose career we shall trace in the next chapter. But something must be said about another branch of the Calukyas which ruled from Vengi, on the East Coast, before we take final leave of them. They are usually known as the Eastern Calukyas, as distinguished from the Western Calukyas of Kalyāņi. That some at least among them shared the tolerant attitude of the Câlukya family as a whole becomes evident from the following extract from the Epigraphical Report of Madras :
"Viṣnuvardhana III of the Eastern Călukya dynasty made a grant in S. 684 which registers evidently the renewal of an earlier grant of the village Musinikunda in Tonka N(a)ta-v(a) di-vishaya to the (Jaina) teacher Kalibhadracārya. The Queen of the King Kubja-Viṣṇuvardhana I influenced the grant of a village to a Jaina basti at Bijavādā. Amma II has made grants to Jaina temples patronised the grant of a Jaina Śrāvaki by lending his title to a charitable Jaina feeding house called SarvalokāśrayaJina-Bhavana endowed by her."'""
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From the Kalachumbarra grant of Amma II, the Jaina śrāvaki named in the above passage appears to have been a courtesan. Her name was Cameka. She is described as "a favourite mistress of the King"; an ornament of the Paṭṭavardhikā lineage in the retinue of the Calukyas "; a sun to the waterlilies the faces of courtesans who agitates herself in acquiring fame as radiant as that of a moon to bring to full-tide the waters of the Jaina religion"; and is said to have been "endowed with charity and tenderness and good character, and is beautiful and is a desciple who delights in the teachings of the learned people".
110 lbid. p. 13; Fleet, Dynasties of the Kanarese Districts, p, 48; Bom, Gaz, I ii. p, 443,
111 Cited by Sheshagiri Rao, Studies in &, IJ, II, pp. 20-25,
112 Fleet, Kalachumbarru Grant of Amma II, Ep. Ind, VII p. 182 & n, 4.