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78 / The Later Gangas : Mandali-Thousand
school of thought, are mentioned in the Mandali-Thousand inscriptions. Charters of the period of Nanniya Ganga Permmāļi and later epigraphs go to prove that his predecessors and successors continued to be followers of this sangha, and made generous gifts to the basadis.
Most of the preceptors of the Mandali rulers are of Kāņūrgaņa. It is Ponna (C.E. 960), a Jina-samaya-dipaka, light of the Jaina religion, a court-poet of the Rāştrakūța king Kļşna-III, who is the earliest author to mention and pay rich tributes to the Kāņūr gaņa ācāryas. Poet Ponna, in his Sāntipurāṇam, has mentioned Arhadbali ācārya (1-17, 18) and Bettada Dāmanandi (1-23, 24) as the excellent teachers of Kāņār gana. It is note worthy that the above pontiffs mentioned by poet Poona find place in the inscriptions of the Mandalinād. After Simhanandi acārya follows an exhaustive list of Kāņūr-gana ācāryas (Sh. 4, 40, 57,64 etc). This list of the succession of Nirgranta pontiffs of Kāņūr gana is in extenso identical with the Icavādi fragmentary inscription; but, I have explained elsewhere in this monograph, that the Icavādi charter is just a broken piece, containing the second half of the same Kallurgudda inscription, bearing the number Shimoga 4, in Rice's edition of Epigraphia Carnatika volume VII and part-I (1902).
The disciples after Simhanandi ācārya are Arhadbalyācārya, Bettada Dāmanandi bhattāraka, Meghacandra traividyadeva, Prabhācandra Siddhāntadeva-I, Guņacandra Panditadeva, Gunanandideva, Māghanandi Siddhāntadeva, his collegue, Anantaviryamuni, his confrere Municandramuni, his disciple Śrutakirti Kanakanandi-traividya, Mādhvacandra, his disciple Bālacandra yatindra - these are the ācāryas of the Mandali rulers. These are the monks who were the moving spirit behind the construction of Caityālayas. The names of these ascetics are repeated with various epithets, emphasising their spiritual attainment.
This long list does not say that these ācāryas came one after another in the same order; because, some of them were contemporaries, either living at the same monastery or at different basadis. Ālahalli, Basadiyahalli, Bannikere, Didagūr, Edehalli, Harige, Kalambūrunagara, Kuntalapura, Kuruli, Nelavatii, Nidige,
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