Jainism in South India and Some Jaina Epigraphs

Author(s): P B Desai
Publisher: Jain Sanskruti Samrakshak Sangh Solapur

Page 62

JAINISKE IN SOUTH INDIA
investigation into the Buddhist antiquities, the Sthalapurāṇas of various temples of the place, the local traditions and other sources, all lead us to arrive at the same result, to wit, Kinchi was a great centre of the Buddhist creed for a considerably long age of centuries and that subsequently it yielded place to the faith of Jina. With the decline of Buddhism approximately by the age of the fifth century A. ., Jainism gained ascendancy rapidly. It expanded and consolidated its position in and around the region of Kānchi. This is observed from a survey of a good number of places in the area of the Conjeoveram taluk, which have afforded several smouldering relics of the Jaina creed. We may now take a glimpse of these antiquities near Kūnchi.
VIOINITY OF KANCHI: Ānandamangalam has revealed the existence of a group of Jaina sculptures carved on the rock of a hillock lying near the village. On another rock near this group is a solitary Jaina figure with attendants. The central figure in the group is believed to represent Anantanātha Tirthakara; consequently, it is conjectured that the village has derived its name from the Jaina deity. But it will be shown presently that both these assumptions are incorrect. No followers of the Jaina faith are residing in the village at present; but members of the Jaina.community living in the neighbouring villages come to this place once in a year to offer worship to the abovementioned Jaina deities on the boulder.3 An inscription dated 1. 1. 945, in the reign of the Chola king Madiraikonda Parakēsarivarman, is engraved on the boulder by the side of the Jaina sculptures. It records a gift of gold made by the divine Vardhamānapperiyadigal, i disciple of Vinaiyabhāsura Kuravadigal for providing food to a devotee at Jinagiripalli, This Jinagiripalli appears to have been the monastery situated at Jinagiri, possibly a name of the Jaina settlement near the hillock at Anandamangalam.
ĀNANDAMANGALAM SOULPTURES: Now before proceeding to other places in the vicinity of Kāneli, we may pause for a moment to take a closer view of the rock-cut figures near Anandamangalam mentioned above; for these sculptures seem to belong to an early age and their study is calculated to help us to understand some peculiar espects of the religious and iconographic traditions of Jainism in Tamil land.
The group contains a central figure which occupies a place of prominence. This is evidently a Tirthakara seated on a throne in the palyankūsana
1 An, Rep. on S. I. Epigraphy, 1923 pp. 128-29. 2 Ibid, p. 129. 3 Ibid., p. 3. 4 Ibid., Appendix B, No. 430. Periyadiga! is an honorific soffix sigaifying high
veneration. Kuravadign! also is an honorific epithet indicating great reverence,
derived from Sanskrit guru. 8 Photograph in the colleotion of the Govárament Epi raphist's Oflice,