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JAINA XPIGRAPES: PART DI
385
of monks belonging to the illustrious Müla Saṁgha and Balātkāra gaña. The pocasion of the gift, the temple to which the image was dedicated and other details in regard to the transaction are irretrievably lost. The donor appears to have been a monk of some status. The discovery of this inscription in this village which possesses no traces of the faith of Lord Jina at present, indicates at once the existence of religious institutions and followers of the faith in the past in this locality and its neighbourhood.
TEXT 1 Śrī-Mūla-Samgha-sambhava Ba......ga (ņādhyaksha )......... 2 samyya( ya )minā sõ(sho)da ś& ......... (prākṣitā cha saba ) ...
TRANSLATION ...... by the monk ...... president of the Ba[ lātkāra ) gaña, constituent of the illustrious Mūla Sangha ......... the sixteen ......
INSCRIPTION NO. 58
(Found on a stone slab at Rājūru) This inscription was detected on a slab of stone at Rājūru, a village situated in the Yalbargi taluk. The slab was set up against the front wall of & temple of Siva in the locality. In the upper portion above the writing, the slab contains the representations of the Sun and the Moon at the top, a Jaina monk in the sitting posture in the middle and a cow being suckled by the calf by the side. The inscribed portion of the slab is greatly damaged and much worn out. Fragments of some lines and a few expressions here and there could be made out with some difficulty. It was not possible to count the lines in their proper order.
The epigraph is engraved in Kannada characters of medium size. The language is Kannada except for the invocatory verse in Sanskrit. The composition is both prose and verse. The document appears to have contained a date; but the date portion of the record is thoroughly effaced. So, as the next alternative, we have to take into consideration the evidence of palaeography, and approximately ascribe its date to the 12th century A. D. ..... The charter commences with the familiar Sanskrit verse invoking the commandment of Lord Jina. After this a major portion of the record is completely worn out. This might have contained an account of the reigning king and the cirumstantial details of the gift. It is clear from the extant portion that the object of the epigraph is to register an endowment of land in all probability for the benefit of a Jaina temple of the locality. Next comes the imprecatory passage. This is followed by a verse which, most probably, contained the praise of the donor.
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