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JAINISM IN SOUTH INDIA
teacher Kumudēndu who was a constituent of the illustrious Mūla samgha and Balātkāra gana.' This record again lends support to yet another piece of information furnished by the Adūru inscription (No. 52) regarding the existence of the teachers of the Balātkāra gana in this region.
Yalbargi is referred to by its old name Erambarage or Erambarıpuram in the early epigraphical records. Being the capital town of the Sinda chiefs who ruled here, it must have been a fairly big place. The chiefs of the Sinda family were feudatories of the Western Chālukyas of Kalyāņa and rose to prominence in the latter part of the 11th century A. D. ViraVikramāditya, one of the last rulers of this family, is referred to in an inscription noticed here (No. 51).
OTHER PLACES Besides the places dealt with in detail in the foregoing account, stray vestiges of the Jaina faith, such as the images of Tirthařkaras or other divinities, were noticed lying in a deserted or damaged condition in the following places: UppinBetyāri, Kaulūru, Kukanūru, Saņņa Sindõgi and Mudhol in the Kopbal Dt., and Kanakagiri and Mālagitti in the Raichur Dt. Their presence in these villages, some of which are insignificant and out of the way, while others are noted as strongholds of the Bralımanical faiths, speaks abundantly for the powerful and pervasive influence wielded by Jainisin at one time in these parts of Karnāțaka.
REVIEW OF THE EPIGRAPHS After this brief survey of the antiquities of the individual villages, I shall now take a collective view of the contents of the epigraphs and review in brief the contribution made by them to our knowledge of the political condition, society, religion, literature and language of Karnātaka of the period with special reference to the region represented by them. Most of the important points arising out of the texts of the inscriptions have been discussed in the introductory remarks on those documents. But such of the topics as could not find a proper place or adequate justification there will be dealt with here in some details.
CHRONOLOGICAL SPAN: The epigraphs belong to different periods of the Karnāțaka history and cover a wide range of nine centuries extending from the 8th to the 16th century A. D. Of these No. 47 from Halgēri furnishes the uppermost chronological limit, while No. 30 from Kopbal provides the lowest.
POLITICAL HISTORY Of the principal ruling families that shaped the political history of Karnāțaka, five main dynasties are represented in the present collection.
1 Ind. Ant., Vol. VIII, p. 246.
