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in his Santinatha Purana, of the poet himself, but also by the identification of certain passages hailing from the work, cited in the Kävyävalōkana and Sabdamanidarpana, two works on Kannada poetics and grammar. It was Rashtrakūta Krishna III who conferred the title Kavichakravarti (poet-sovereign) on the poet Ponna. It seems likely in the context that Krishna III bore the epithet Bhuvanaikarama, and that the poet following the conventions of the age, celebrated his patron's name by composing a work after this epithet as was done by the poet Pampa and others. In view of this the assumption that Ponna wrote his work Bhuvanaikarāmābhyudaya in honour of Sankaraganda, for the simple reason that the latter also bore the title Bhuvanaikarāma does not. hold much water; because Sankaraganda with all his eminence was only a feudatory and occupied a subordinate position.1
JAINISM IN SOUTH INDIA
The Ingalgi inscription of A. D. 1094 (No. 1) incidentally refers to a local chief named Anega who bore the title Birudanka Bhima and was possibly a descendent of Ayyana. The context shows that the region of Ingalgi was under the jurisdiction of this Anega. A chief named Echabhupa who belonged to the Ahihaya lineage, was connected with the Mirinte Nadu and possessed the title Mahishmatipuravaradhisvara, is introduced by an inscription from Aḍaki (No. 9), dated about A. D. 1115. A record from Sedam (No. 7), assigned to A. D. 1160, tells us that the chiefs of the Ahihaya lineage were prosperous in the region of Aral. The region of Aral, referred to as Aral Nadu and Aral Three Hundred, roughly comprised the modern taluks of Seḍam and Chitapur in the Gulbarga District. Ahihaya is a variant of Haihaya and information is available from other epigraphs in the area in regard to the chiefs who claimed to have been born in the Ahihaya race, belonged to the lineage of Ayyana and bore the title Mahishmatipuravarādhīśvara.a Some members of this Haihaya family are also spoken of as administering the tract of Mirinte Three Hundred, in conjunction with that of Aral Three Hundred.3 Mirinte, the headquraters of the tract may be identified with modern Martür near Gulbarga. Thus it appears that several branches of these chiefs had spread over a large area of the modern Gulbarga District. Their family name and the title unmistakably show that these chiefs originally hailed from central India and subsequently settled in the region Karnataka. So they might be designated, in a general way, the Haihayas of Karnāṭaka.
A few more details regarding these Haihaya chiefs may be noticed here from the published and unpublished inscriptions. An inscription from Nāgāi of A. D. 1084 gives the genealogical account of a branch of the Haihaya chiefs, which
1
Prabuddha Karpāṭaka, Vol. XV, pp. 28-35.
2 Ep. Ind., Vol. XII, pp. 292-3.
3 Hyd. Arch. Series, No. 8; Inscriptions of Nagai, c.