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REVIEW AND RBTROSPBOT
390
TRANSLATION The venerable master Mahāmandalēśvara Viruparasa endowed land as gana-matha to Vira-Dāsa for worshipping the deities of all the votaries of Siva - Viruparasa who was invested with the entire encomium of the countless advocates of Siva, who though living in the new age, are imbibed with the spirit of the votaries of that hallowed past, who are adamantine hammer to the mountains in the form of adverse doctrines, who are peerless among mankind, a conflagration to the wild forest of Jaina creed, quintessence of poison to those who cross their path, adept in crushing the Buddhist tenets, considerate in their intentions, who whip out the skin on the back of the supporters of other faiths and make the fiends drink the blood of their opponents, who are the grindstone to the rival creeds, who can pull out the tongue of the God of Death or eat the poison undaunted, who cause Hara to appear in the hall of contest by their intense devotion and demolish the partisans of hostile faiths, who are the towers of strength defying the advance of age, who have harassed the advocates of alien doctrines, encountering them at Pariyalige, Anilevāda, Uņukallu, Sampagāvi, Bēlūru, Mārudige, Aņampūru, Karahāda, Kembāvi, Bammukūru and other places in various parts of the country, which made the world quake, pounded and powdered the Jaina temples and raised the thrones of Sivalingas and have thus vindicated their conviction of faith and steadfastness of devotion, displaying aloft as it were on the open altar the paramountcy of god Siva and the superiority of their favourite creed in the worlds of god and men and the netherworld.
The above extract contains allusions to the repression of other creeds in general and Jainism and Buddhism in particular. But it is easy to gather that the performances of these votaries of Siva were primarily directed against the protagonists of Jainism which was the predominant faith of the land as seen from the specific reference more than once to the Jaina creed and the devastation of the Jaina temples in various parts of the country. Since Buddhism had a very limited appeal among the people of Karnāțaka, we have to treat such allusions to the Buddhist creed as in the present record and also in the Ablūr inscription, as only incidental. It is of interest futher to observe that many of the regions, such as Uņukallu (modern Uņakal near Hubli), Sampagāvi (Sampagaon in the Belgaum Dt.), and Bammukūru (Bankūr in the Gulbarga Dt.), mentioned in the foregoing passage, where the supporters of hostile creeds are said to have been harassed by the protagonists of Saivism, are known to us as having been strongholds of Jainism.
Among these Bammukūru or Bankūr deserves particular attention. In An earlier context while giving an account of the general survey of antiquities* in
1 Ep. Ind., Vol. V, p. 255. 2 Above-xpp. 183.85. Bammukūr is also mentioned in Ep. Carn., Vol. VII, Channagiri No. 9 - (11th century).
