Jinamanjari 2000 04 No 21

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

Page 75

established in C. 9th Cent. C.E., and also a gaṇa, cohort of Jaina monks and nuns, was named after the place..
A rapid increase in the number of Jaina temples also made the emergence of Jaina mathas inevitable. Thus, mathas had separate functions to carryout, including the administration of Jaina church. A well-regulated hierarchy of Jaina church officers effectively regulated both the Jaina shrines and the Jaina community. Bhaṭṭārakas or the chief pontiff stood at the head of the monastic organization, simultaneously attending to the act of initiating the novices into the order and receiving gift of land, villages and jewelry or cash as a custodian, for the maintenance of temples and charity houses.
The spread of Jainism and the dissemination of Jaina ideals received sufficient impetus on the advent of Acārya Kundakunda, pioneer in almost all the genealogies of southern Jaina tradition. He is known from a number of lithic records as a connoisseur of exceptional accomplishments. Some of the medieval gana and gacchas, cohorts of the Mulasangha, original congregation, had their origin from the place where that particular house of ascetics once existed.
Growth and survival of Jaina church has had its wax and wane. Drawing upon the literary and epigraphic evidence of specific periods and locations, it is known that Jaina community sailed safe till the late medieval period. The period of Jaina ascendancy was fast drawing to its zenith, when the Raṣṭrakūta throne was occupied by Amoghavarṣa-I (C.E. 814-75. He had grown in the bon uiuant, good companion of eminent Jainas de novo, from the beginning. He was educated in Jaina monastery at Manyakheta under the command of the adept Jinasenācfārya, the then Pope of the Jaina church in the kingdom. Obviously, he cultivated a religious temperament. Amoghavarṣa-I, who had Nrpatunga as his first name, did not give up his association with Jaina monastery, and would frequently retreat from his court to spend time in the company of Jaina ascetics. Consequence to this Jaina influence, he also authored a small catechism in Sanskrit entitled Praśnottara-ratna-mālikā.
Jains have constituted a small religious minority of Indian society only after the Vijayanagara period. Till then, from fourth century C.E., onwards upto the end of the Kalyāṇa Cāļukya period, Jains were on par with any contemporary major religion. During and after the Vijayanagara period, their numerical strength deteriorated gradually to 0.41% of the total Indian population. In Karnataka also americally Jains are a small segment. Fascist aggression dominated the scene, moke billowed from the sanctuaries, monasteries and the houses of Jaina ommunity. Skirmishes continued between Jainas and heaps of sobs and bitter emories linger long in the backyard of history of Jaina Church. As a result of all is catastrophe, the number of Jaina monastery also dwindled to a single digit om its strength of three digits.
An alphabetical list of places where Jaina monasteries flourished in the medieval period is given at the end of this paper, based on epigraphic evidences. Some of the Jaina monasteries, like very many Jaina temples, were requisitioned by non-Jaina sects in the post-medieval period, particularly during the reign of Vijayanagara empire. Mahāvamsa (33.78), a Bauddha text, states that the Jaina monastery of Anuradhapura was annihilated in the reign of Vattaga-maņi (B.C. 2917) of Ceylon. Cloisters of Jaina friars had already existed in the last centuries of
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