Later Gangas Mandali Thousand

Author(s): Nagarajaiah Hampa
Publisher: Ankita Pustak

Page 84

The Mandalināļu polity / 41
where she built a basadi to which Ganga Permmādideva also endowed with several gifts of land. “This is a very significant point, for dancing was not looked down upon as an art of any particular sect, but was practiced by persons well placed in society. Secondly, such dancers had so much faith in religion that they would undertake the construction of temples and basadis” [Sheik Ali: 1976: 275-76). In the celebrated Mandalinād as the face to Gangavādinād, the Bannikere was its nose (Sh. 97. 112-13 pp. 106-108].
Intercaste marriage was not uncommon in the Mandalinād. Sindagāmunda of Viragrāma was a bee at the lotus feet of Jinendra. But, he had married Nāgagāvundi who was head of Māheśvara-gana and respecting each others faith they lived happily. Perhaps this type of husband, wife and children each belonging to different religion, but yet living in harmony in the same house, was the order of the day. Jains could marry endogamously, albeit attend the local basadi ("Jain temple' from Sanskrit Vasati') without any intervention, either from the priest or from the Jaina laity. Normally, Jains do accomodate, if not encourage, marriages outside their own sects and castes, which elucidate the catholicity of Jainism. This reminds of a similar family of Mācikabbe and Mārsimhayya, the parents of Patta-mahādevi śāntaladevi of king Vişnuvardhana, who were also supposed to have possessed different caste system. It is said that Vişnuvardhana, having come under the sway of the erudite great Rāmānujaācārya, converted to the Vaişnava dharma and changed his name from Bittigadeva to Vişnuvardhana. In the above two cases, the women were Jains and their husbands were Saiva and Vaisnava respectively. Brahmmaśiva, a Kannada poet (1175) has recorded such instances of inter-caste marriages and their peculiarities in his kāvya 'Samaya-parikse'.
Feudal relations between the state and the merchant guilds, as referred in the epigraphs of the Mandalinād was cordial. They had monopolised the trade and commerce, thus controlling the local civil, revenue and judicial matters. Hoysaļa Goyisetti, a worshipper of the feet of Jinendra, was head merchant of the Mandalinād. He was lord of the forest, evidently a dealer of wood and other products of the forest (Sh. 36. 1180). He was staying at