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4. JAINTS IN KARNATAKA
121
The Silahāra chief Vijayaditya figures seven years later (A. D. 1150) in a similar religious transaction recorded on a stone at Bamani' in the Kagal area of the Kolhapur region. He donated land and a housesite for the worship of the image of Parsvanatha and for the execut ion of the repairs to the temple established by the local official Chōdhore Kamagavunda at Madlür. The gift was handed over to the charge of Arhanandi Siddhantadeva, a disciple of Maghanandi.
The name of Kolhapur is referred to a good number of times in three different forms, viz., Kollapura, Kollagira and Kshullakapura, in the inscriptions of Terdal and Kolhapur noticed above. We may indulge in a brief digression in regard to the origin of the name here. On the analogy of place names like Kollipäka (in Karnataka), Kollipära (in Andhra ), etc., Kollapura appears to have been originally a Dravidian proper name. Its base 'kolli' or 'kollai' is an ancient indigenous expression, and this is found with its allied variations in Kannada, Tamil and Telugu languages. It connotes a forest tract, valley, dry land, etc. On account of its Jaina associations the name appears to have been Sanskritised into Kshullakapura, Kshullaka being an order of Jaina monks." The aspiration in the second syllable of the present name is a later accretion and has nothing to do with the Marathi expression 'kōlhā,' meaning a jackal'. The earliest reference to the place is to be traced perhaps in the pilgrim's record at Kopbal, roughly ascribed to the 10th century A. D.
Maghanandi of the Rupa-Narayana temple at Kolhapur was an eminent personality in the history of Jaina church of this area, and he contributed immensely to the prosperity of the faith by his crudition and efficient administration of the ecclesiastical organisations under him and through the able band of his scholarly disciples, during his long regime of nearly three generations.
Kolhapur was an eminent stronghold of Jainism from early times and it has maintained its reputation almost to the present day. It was reckoned among the four pontifical centres or spiritual thrones sacred to the Jaina community.* This tradition is affirmed in a later inscription,"
1 Ep. Ind. Vol. III pp. 211 ff.
2 Ibid., Vol. XXIV, p. 272.
3
See No. 39 of the Jaina Epigraphs of the author's collection. As noted above Kollagira was one of the early names of Kolhapur. In his Kavyamimämsä (Gaekwad's Oriental Series, No. 1, p. 93) Rajasekhara (9th century A. D.) mentions Kollagiri as one of the regions situated in the Dakshinapatha. Could this Kollagiri represent the tract near about Kolhapur? Contra, N. L. Dey's Geographical Dictionary, wherein Kölagiri has been identified with Kodagu or Coorg (p. 101).
4 Ind. Ant., Vol. XXXII. p. 460.
5 Inscriptions in Northern Karnataka and Kolhapur State, No. 40.
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