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JAINISM IN SOUTH INDIA
and danoing and his skill in the lores of architecture, Mantra (holy incantation), Tantra (science of rituals ) and spiritual concentration: these were the subject of praise by all people.'
Akalanka II and Bhattākalanka figure prominently in the inscrip. tions of the Biļigi chiefs wherein they are praised at length and described as the family preceptors and supreme teachers. Rangarāja calls himself the favourite disciple of Akalanka II. Ghantāndra II was equally attached to Akalanka II, but he came into direct and more intimate relationship with Bhattākalanka. From the colophon of the famous work on Kannada grammar, named Karņāțaka Sabdānuśāsana, it is known that its author was the Jaina teacher Bhattākalanka, disciple of Akalanka and that these two teachers bearing all the specific titles mentioned before in connection with Chārukirti Pandita, belonged to the pontifical throne of Sangitapura. This analogy of details supported by the evidence of chronology has led to the irresistible conclusion that Bhattākalanka of the Biligi records was identical with his namesake grammariau. It is stated at the end of one of the two records at Biligi that both of them were the creations of Bhattākalanka. We can detect the perso nality of the learned author Bhattākaļanka even in these epigraphical records from their literary style and scholarly treatment. These inscriptions are dated in Saka 1515 or a. D. 1592. The above work on grammar is dated A. D. 1604.
It would be interesting to take note here, in passing, of two legends touching the great Kondakundáchārya, as related in the Biligi Ratnatraya Basadi inscription No. 1. One of them is like this. Once a mischievous person who was not well-disposed towards the sage, concealed a pot of wine in the cell of Kondakunda and complained against him before the king. The teacher was summoned to the court along with the pitcher. And lol by the power of holy incantation he had turned it into a jar full of jasmine flowers. Hence he became famous as Kuņdakunda (i. e., Jar of Jasmine). We can easily detect in this story an attempt to explain the Sanskritised appellation of the teacher, whose real name was Padmanandi, by a sympathetic tule. The second legend narrates that the preceptor, like a Chāraņa, moved in the space four fingers above the earth, in order to illustrate, as it were, the truth that one who was the living incarnation of forbearance, was superior to this earth which is called Forbearance (kshamā). The miraculous feat of travelling in the air, as attributed to the divine, seems to have been a widely prevalent belief; and
1 This description of the two teachers is based on the contents of the two epigraphs in
the Ratnatray. Basadi at Biļigi. % In my article on Bhattakalankaděva published in the Journal of the Kannada Literary
Academy, Bangalore, Vol. XXX, Nos. 3-4, I have discussed this topic exhaustively in all its bearings. I have summarised here some of the main arguments set forth in the article.
