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Origin and Growth of Jaina Monachism in Karnataha
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sami Kalteyamma and others granted land and money for imparting education and the expenses of the Jaina monastery attached to the Jaina temple at Soralur in the same district. The gift was entrusted to the care of Bhimarāsi-bhatāra.1 An epigraph from Koņņur dated 10872 refers to Nidhiyama gãyunga who erected a Jaina temple at Koņqanūru in the Gokak taluq of the Belgaum district and gave a gift of land to his teacher Sridharadeva, who belonged to the Balatkaragana of the Müla sangha. Another record of 1160% i egisters the construction of a basadi by the Hoysaļa gāvunda which was endowed with land obtained by the Hoysa!a king. Similar attempts of temple construction were made by Bithigāvunda, who donated the village Madahalli for repairing the temple and performing worship therein in the last decade of the 12th century.
The early Jaina recordss from Karnataka do not furnish any information about the support of the mercantile people to Jaina religious institutions. The merchants seem to have appeared first in the donative records of the 10th century, when some merchant donors are said to have financed Jaina establishments. An inscriptions from Mulgund in Dharwar district, dated 902-3, speaks of Cíkārya, son of Candrārya of the Vaiśya caste, as the founder of a local Jaina temple. Cikäryas' son Arasarya also donated land for the maintenance of the establishment. It further registers gift of another piece of land to the same temple by the trading guilds of 360 merchants. Another record of 950 refers to certain unnamed satçis (merchants) who made an annual grant of fixed amount for the Jaina temple during the reign of the sāniara king Jinadatta-Rāya. Except these two epigraphs, we do not come across any evidence of gifts and donations made by the merchants to the Jaina sanctuaries between the 5th and the
1. BX1, no. 39, p. 21. 2 JBBRAS, X, pp. 287ff
Es, vi, Md, 63, pp. 12-3. 4. Ibid, iv, Gu, 27, p, 40 5. Top, List of Inscriptiont, i, p. 265. 0. El, xiii, pp. 190ff. 7. EC, vii, ch. 114, p. 37.
