Jainism and Karnataka Culture

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

Page 79

HISTORICAL SURVEY
Of the Ratta kings we have more elaborate references. They were feudatories of the Rāştrakūțas of Mānyakhêta, whose patronage of Jainism we have already miticed. Hultzsch has pointed out that "Rațța was the real and practical form and Rāşțrakūța was the ornamental or stately form, of the familyname." #16 These Rațțas ( 1050-96 A. D.) appear to have come to power through the influence of a Jaina named Pșthvīrāma, a disciple in the Kārêya sect of the Jainas founded by Mailapatirtha ; an inscription at Kalbhāvi speaks of this Kāréya sect in the lineage of Maila pa 915. There are also some temples at Koạūr, which have now been converted to Saiva use, but which popular tradition represents as built by Jaina saints as a place in which to perform their penances. “Any visitor to Końūr who wishes to see them,” says Fleet, "should still ask for the 'small stone houses of the Jaina rșis which are in the jungle.' They were probably originally Jaina shrines. Konūr seems in fact to have been in old times a place of importance among the Jainas, and the post of the hereditary head-man of the village is still held by a Jaina family, in conjunction with a Lingāyat family.” 116
One of the titles of the Ratta king Candraprabhā was "who is the cause of the diffusion of the sacred writings of Jina " .117 Krsnarājadeva "the glory of the race of Râştrakūtas" also made a grant to a Jaina temple. 38 It concludes with the words "he who confiscates land that has been given, whether by himself or by another is born for 60,000 years as a worm in ordure. May prosperity ever attend him who, joyfully reading this, preserves it, and joy, pleasure, perfect happiness, health and fortune; but if any one reads it with the evil resolve of destroying it, may he go to the awful abode of misery for as long as the
214 Hulzsch, Ibid. VII, pp. 217, 219-20. 215 Ind. Ant. XVIII, p. 313; cf. Bom. Gez. I ii, p. 550. 216 Fleet, Ratta Inscriptions, JBBRAS X, p. 182. 917 Ibid., p. 192. 218 Ibid., pp. 199-200. JKC—2528 7