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4. JAINISM IN KARNATAKA
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anvaya derived the name from the holy place Mailapa Tirtha. We have analogous instances in the Jaina monastic orders wherein an anvaya or lineage takes its name after some holy place; for example, Kondakundanvaya from the village Kondakunde; Hanasõge anvaya from Hanasōge; etc. Our epigraph, further, does not specify the Samgha of which Kareya gana was a branch. But this point is clarified by the epigraphs at Badli and Hannikeri, which assert that Kareya gana was a section of the Yapaniya Samgha. This piece of information is valuable and it fits in with another piece of evidence. shall presently see that preceptors who belonged to Kandur gana which was another section of the Yapaniya Samgha were also established at Saundatti. The history of both these sections can be pushed back to the 9th century a. D. From this we are led to surmise that next to Halsi, Saundatti was an early and important stronghold of the Yapaniya organisation.
We
Another epigraph' in the same temple at Saundatti is dated A. D. 980. The introductory lines of this inscription refer to the Jaina temple owned by the royal house of the Rattas (Raṭṭara paṭṭa-jinälaya). The record narrates further the details regarding the patronage enjoyed by the Jaina creed at the hands of the Ratta family. Mahāsāmanta Santivarma was the grandson of Prithvirama noticed above. He was a feudatory of Taila II of the Chalukyas of Kalyana. Having erected a Jaina temple at Sugandhavarti, Santivarma made a generous donation of land for its maintenance. This temple appears to have earned the privilege of becoming the favourite shrine of the royal household as specified earlier. Santivarma's mother Nijiyabbe also made a similar benefaction in favour of the same temple. The gift was received by the preceptor Bahubali Bhaṭṭāraka.
Bahubali Bhaṭṭaraka was a renowned scholar and an eminent teacher of the Jaina Law. He belonged to the Kandur gana which, as revealed by other epigraphs to be reviewed presently, was a branch of the Yapaniya Samgha. Five more preceptors who belonged to the same monastic section are described in the epigraph. They are Ravichandra Svami, Arhaṇandi, Subhachandra Siddhantadēva, Maunidēva and Prabhachandra. The record does not specify their mutual relation. However it is not unlikely that the latter were the successive preceptors of Bahubali commencing with Prabhachandra. If this surmise be correct, it will yield the middle of the 9th century as the approximate period of Ravichandra Svami. This inference seems to secure confirmation from another fragmentary inscription' discovered near the same temple at Saundatti. Its date falls within the regnal period of the Kalyāņa Chalukya ruler Bhuvanaikamalla or Sōmēsvara 11, i. e., A. D. 1068 to 1076. In the latter
1 J. B. B. R. A. S., Vol. X, pp. 204 ff.
2 Ibid., pp. 213 ff.
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