Book Title: Jainism in South India and Some Jaina Epigraphs
Author(s): P B Desai
Publisher: Jain Sanskruti Samrakshak Sangh Solapur

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Page 159
________________ 4. JAINISM IN KARNATAKA 189 ations of the old social order.' Added to this were the inroads made by the leaders of the Viraśaiva movement and other rival faiths. Eventually, the chiefs of the two principalities of Biligi and Sõnda discarded the Jaina oreed of their ancestors and became the followers of the Viragaiva school. DAARWAR DISTRIOT ĀDŪR: Two early inscriptions engraved on a single slab of stone come from Adūr in the Hãngal taluk. The first of these registers a gift of land made to a Jaina temple by Dharma Gāvuņda ; and it mentions three preceptors, Vinayanandi of the Paralūra gaña, his disciple Vásudēva Guru and the latter's disciple Prabhāchandra. The second epigraph refers itself to the reign of the Western Chalukya king Kirtivarma II and records the grant of a piece of wet land, probably to the same temple, by the local officials with the permission of the feudatory governor Mādhavatti Arasa, Prabhāchandra Gurăvar, belonging to the Chediya or Jaina temple of Paralūra received the gift. This teacher is evidently identical with his namesake of the former epigraph. The records are not dated, but may be assigned approximately to the middle of the 8th century A. D. from their palaeographical set up and the allusion to the king in the latter inscription. Madhavatti Arasa was probably • chief of the Sēndraka family. We may note here the early Jaina associations of the expression Gurāvar occurring in the name of the above teacher. Gurāvar is the same as Guravar and it has its variant in Goravadigaļ. These denote preceptorship. They are met with in connection with the Jaina teachers mentioned in the Sravaņa Belgola inscriptions, Nos. 5, 6, 7 and 8. The feminine form of the expression, Guravi, also occurs in No. 7. All these epigraphs are dated about A. D. 700. Subsequently the term Gorava acquired specific significance denoting a class of Saivite teachers and priests." 1 2 It is interesting to note how Jaina images are being honoured anwittingly by the followers of the other creeds to this day. In the village Kalkuņi, a few miles from Sirsi, I found a fragment of the Jaina image of a Tirthakara with the triple umbrella being adored us Guru Mūrti by an orthodox family of Brahmaņas. Karnatak Inscriptions, No. 3. Paralūra mentioned in this reoord appears to be identical witb'greater Paralūra' mentioned in a copper plate charter dated in the third regnal year of the early K adamba king Mrigésavarma; Ind. Ant., Vol. VII, p. 35. This suffix of the name evidently derived from Sanskrit 'guru' and applied to Jaina teachers is interesting. Though any teacher can be called a 'guru' or 'goravar', a convention came into being by which a particular community of Saiva teachers, priests or mendicants came to be designated as Goravas. Goravas figure in the Karnataka inscriptions from the 9th oentury onwards and their Saivite affiliations are gufficiently manifest. (Ep. Ind., Vol. VII, p. 201; Vol. X, p. 67; Vol. XV, p. 92; 8. I. I., Vol. VII, No, 580, eto.) The expression Gorava is met with in its Telugu form Goraga in an early Teluga insoription of the 9th century A. D.; Ep. Ind., Vol. XV, p. 157.

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