Jainism in Ealy Medieval Karnataka

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

Page 83

Religious Rituals and Practices of the Karnataka Jainas
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Belgola in Mysore, accompanied by his chief disciplc Candragupta Maurya. On reaching Sravana-Belgoļa, he ordered the Jaina community to proceed on their journey, while he hiinself stayed on at Candragiri hill. He died there by the Jaina rite of fasting. Upon the death of Bhadrabāhu, Candragupta continued there as an ascetic for several ycars worshipping the footprints of his guru (teacher) till his death by the Jaina rite of sallekhana. This tradition, which has not becn questioned by Jaina scholars, does not stand on solid ground on account of the lack of definite proof. We have no contemporary literary and epigraphic evidence to support this Jaina tradition. But there is no doubt that the practice of sallekhana prevailed among the Karnataka Jainas from the 7th century,
By the 8th century, the ritual became very popular in Karnataka. We have only five cases of death by fasting in the 7th century, but there are about fifty-four cases recorded in the Sth century. Of the fifty four cases mentioned above, forty three refer to men, mostly monks, and ten commcmorate the death of nuns. Inscriptions dealing with the subject reveal two categories of monks, spiritual teachers who were called acārya, bhattaraka and sūri, and the ordinary monks who were not given any title of respect. The nuns also accepted this mode of death as bravely as the monks. They did not lag behind the monks in religious austerities and exhibited the same tenacity in obsei ving sallehhanā.
The Karnataka Jainas continued to perform this ritual vigorously during the 10th-12th centuries. Inscriptions show that this rite prevailed not only among the monks and nuns but also among the Jaina laity. Some epigraphs from ŚravanaBelgola speak of its observance by men and women of high social status. Indra IV, for instance, is recorded to have dicd in tlle typical Jaina fashion of sallekhana at Sravana-Belgola in the 10th century.4 Similarly thc Ganga king Mārasimha is
1. EC, ii, SB 1,630 AD, p. 1; SB 2, 650 A.D., p. 2; SB 11, 650 A.D., p
4; SB 31,630 AD., 7; SB 76, 650 AD, p. 40. 2 Cf. Appendix—'B', nos. I to 44. 3. Cf. Appendix—'B', nos. 45 to 54. 4. EC, 11, SB 133, 982 A.D., pp. 61-3; ibid. xii, SB 27, p. 92.