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JAINA EPIGRAPHS: PART III
379
Thousand
In the expired years according to the reckoning of the (Saka) king ...... the cyclic year Vikāri, on Phalguna su. 1 having set up
field of [Ko] pana
Lines 24-26. Imprecation.
Lines 26-27. chiefs in charge of the administration should protect the gift village. May auspiciousness and great glory attend this!
INSCRIPTION NO. 49
(Found on an image unearthed at Yalbargi)
This inscription was noticed on the pedestal of an image at Kopbal. The image bears the name Chauvisa Tirthakara. It was kept in the Neminatha temple when I visited the place in 1930. But as the report goes, it did not originally belong to Kopbal. It was unearthed along with another image bearing the following record some years back at Yalbargi, the headquarters of the taluk of the name in the Kopbal District. When I visited Yalbargi subsequently, I was shown the actual spot where the two images were dug out. The spot is near the present-day Untouchables' Quarter (Mādara Kēri) outside the locality. These images were afterwards removed and kept in the temple at Kopbal. So it is reasonable to treat them with reference to their original find-spot which is Yalbargi and not Kopbal. The inscriptions on these images have been briefly noticed in the Mysore Archaeolgical Report for the year 1916, wherein their provenance has been attributed to Kopbal. Hence it becomes clear that they must have been discovered originally at Yalbargi some time earlier. These inscriptions have been subsequently published in the Hyderbad Archaeological Series, No. 12.1
The image is made of nicely polished black granite stone. As the name denotes it represents not one deity, but a composite sculpture made up of all the Twenty-four Tirthakaras of the Jaina pantheon. The central piece is the majestic figure of Parsvanatha with his serpent hood, flanked by the two Sāsanadēvatās, Dharaṇëndra and Padmavati, at the bottom and the syn.bolic pair of fly-whisks at the top. The remaining 23 Tirthakaras are represented in miniature size on the arch-like aureola surrounding the main deity. The whole sculpture is gorgeously executed and presents a rare specimen of superb craftsmanship of the age.
The inscription consists of four lines. The characters are small and handsome and carefully engraved. The alphabet and the language are
1 See Nos. 9-10, pp. 11-13. In the Mysore Archaeological Report specified above the name of the Jaina temple wherein the images were found is stated to be Chandranatha Basadi (p. 83). This is not correct; for there is no Jaina temple of the name at Kopbal. Similarly, in the Hyderbad Archaeological Publication, the temple has been wrongly called Chauviss Tirthankara Basti (p. 11).
