Jinamanjari 2000 04 No 21

Author(s): Jinamanjari
Publisher: Canada Bramhi Jain Society Publication

Page 74

one subject. It may be noted that the syllabus was not restricted to the Jaina topics only or the religious texts.
Sravanņbeļgoļa, Koppaļa, Hombuja and Muļgunda monasteries served for centuries as the primary location from which teachings of Jina and Jaina tradition were disseminated. Jaina pontiffs and preceptors were sound scholars on varied subjects including religious and secular. Their mastery over canonical knowledge was proverbial. Jaina monks and nuns were felicitous in three R's - reading, (W)riting and (a)rithmetics. House of ascetics also accommodated the willing Jaina men and women householders to get trained in various sciences and allied discipline. In the region of Tamilnādu and Kerala, Jaina monasteries are called Palli, Pali, and these terms occur frequently in the inscriptions, clearly denoting Jaina complex and resting place of Jaina ascetics.
Endowments were made for the maintenance of both the teachers and the students. Feeding the students engaged in studies was a meritorious act of charity. Mathas were also acting as residential institutions making provision for imparting knowledge. An uptodate library, containing manuscripts on all the allied subjects, was well maintained in all the monasteries and the Jaina shrines.
Ayyapadeva, on the request of his two Jaina consorts, Nāgiyabbe and Heleyabbe, granted for the two Jaina shrines of the Baragür Mülasthāna, land (specified) to Vimalamati-bhațara, who in C.E. 920 was the chief of abbatial monk of the matha at Penjūru. There were two Jaina temples, and the nearby Amarapura was also a known Jaina seat in the area of Sirenādu.
· Major monasteries had more powers and responsibility of managing their huge property, in cash and kind while minor mathas administered as subordinate to them. Mandlācāryas were the chief of abbots of a wider diocese and stood at the head of the monastic organization. Many sanctuaries would be under the direct control of such major mathas or chief pontiff. Maleyūr (Kanakagiri), Are-Tippūr, Kambadahalli were attached to the major matha at Sravanabelgola, and Hôm mațha comprised of Vārānga, Kundādri, Maļkhēd, Sõnda and Delhi mathas.
There are no vestiges left behind of the existence of the disocese at many places except the authentic epigraphic and literary evidence to reconstruct the past history. "Jaina was really a popular religion in the Kadamba Empire and that there were many people who were worshippers of Jinendra" (Moraes, G.M: 35]: "Jaina mathas were established in all parts of Karnataka. The inscriptions speak at length about the Jaina monastery at Kuppațūr and give a short genealogy of the gurus. We learn from the records that queen Māļaladevi patronized this institution. At Bāndhavapura there was another famous matha. The flourishing city of Belgaum also contained a representative Jaina population and there existed a Jaina monastery." [Moraes: 252-53).
The town Kogaļi was an important centre of Jaina activity for over centuries. Particularly during the time of Durvinita, king of the early Ganga dynasty, endearing to the Jainas as the prestigious establishment of their faith with the famous king himself commissioning the first and earliest sarvatobhadra olim caturmukha caitāalaya. It was established that the sthanaguru, chief of the local pañcamatha at Kogaļi was its patriarch. Gañadaradēva bhattāraka was the local chief of all the abbots in C.E. 992 and Indrakirtimunindra was the sthanadhipati in C.E. 1055. The former was honored by Taillapa-II (C.E.974-98) and the latter
by Trailõkyamalladēva (C.E.1042-68). Jaina matha at Jambukhandi was Jain Education International For Private Personal Use Only