Jainism in Ealy Medieval Karnataka

Author(s): Ram Bhushan Prasad Singh
Publisher: Motilal Banarasidas

Page 45

Idol Worship and Tantrism
gave impetus to this practice by renovating some of the old Jaina temples aud renewing the old charters of gifts for promoting the cause of Jina worship in Karnataka. From a record of 1068,1 a Jaina general of the western Călukya king Someśvara II, succeeded in converting a wooden temple into a stone structure. For this meritorious work, he took the help of the king as well as his provincial ruler Lakṣmaṇa who completely remodeled the Jaina temple at Balipuia in the Vanavasi country and endowed land to it. In A.D. 1072,2 the queen of Someśvara II is recorded to have renewed the endowment of the village Gudigere for the Anesejjeya basadı, which had been built by Kumkumamalıādevi, the younger sister of the Calukya king Vijayäditya. In another record of ŚravanaBelgola dated A.D. 11183 Ganga-Raja, who is praised for his meritorious work, renovated and restored all the basadis in Gangavādi. In a later record, which is dated A.D. 1184, it is stated that the Gangavaḍi 96,000 province shone like Kopana through the efforts made by Ganga-Raja. We have similar account of the religious deeds of Hulla who delighted in restoring Jina temples and performing Jina worship therein. He renovated a Jaina temple at Bańkāpura which had gone to complete ruin.5
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Besides the worship of Jinas, there is epigraphic evidence to show the regular performance of the worship of Gommatesvara on the Vindhyagiri hill at Śravana-Belgola, Gommatesvara was the son of the first Jina Adinatha whose image was consecrated first by Camunḍaraya in the 10th century. He came to occupy an important position in the hierarchy of Jaina gods and his worship developed as an independent cult in Mysore in the 11th-12th centuries.
It is clear from the above-cited epigraphic references that image worship tended to continue among the Jainas of
1. EC, vit, sh. 135. pp. 102-4.
2. BKI, iv, no. 46, p. 51. 3. EC, ii, SB 73, pp. 38-40.
4. Ibid. iv, Ng. 32, p. 120.
5
Ibid. ii, SB 345, pp. 147-9,
6. Ibid. SB 237-8, A.D. 1196-8, p. 101; SB 241; A.D. 1175, p. 103; SB 212, A D. 1175, pp 103-1; SB 256, A D 1181, p 115