Mahavira Jain Vidyalay Suvarna Mahotsav Granth Part 1

Author(s): Mahavir Jain Vidyalaya Mumbai
Publisher: Mahavir Jain Vidyalay

Page 589

128 SHRI MAHAVIRA JAINA VIDYALAYA GOLDEN JUBILEE VOLUME :
penance. He was beheaded by Rama, but immediately thereafter he was turned into a Siva-linga, now called Dhumreśvara. This tradition. is at least seven hundred years old; for it is mentioned in a stone inscription of the Yadava period fixed in the front wall of the temple. of Lakṣmaṇa on the hill of Ramtek. His name occurs there in a slightly different form, viz., Dhumrākṣa.10 We learn from Bhavabhuti's Uttararamacarita that the Dandakaranya containing large hills and dales infested by dreadful ferocious beasts stretched southward from the place of Sambûka's hermitage up to the confines of Janasthäna, on the bank of the Godavari. The situation of Ramtek thus answers to the description in the Paümacariya. That the place was known by the name of Ramagiri in the fourth century A.D. is clear from the Ṛddhapur plates of the Vākāṭaka dowager queen Prabhavatigupta, who made one of her grants there near the padukas of Ramagirisvamin (i. e. Ramacandra),12 Kalidasa also describes that the hill of Ramagiri had the venerable pädukäs of Raghupati (Rama) installed on it. The way of the Cloud-messenger described in the Meghadüte suits Ramtek and no other place, 14 and there are reasons to suppose that Kalidasa sojourned for some time in the neighbouring Väkäṭaka capital Nandivardhana, which lies only about three miles from Ramtek.15 The hill of Ramtek was thus undoubtedly known as Ramagiri in the fourth century A.D. and it is not unlikley that the place was known by the same name a century or two before in the age of Vimalasuri. In describing the hill of Rama's sojourn as Ramagiri which lay to the north of Daṇḍakaranya, Vimalasüri was not simply drawing on his imagination, but appears to have known the tradition about Ramtek.
In one respect, however, Vimalasûri's description appears to be imaginary. He tells us that at the instance of Rama several temples of Jinendras were erected on the hill, which later became known as Ramagiri. There are now no remains of any temples of the Jaina.
10 See श्रीरामचन्द्रस्य करेण चंद्रहासाद्धतः प्राप्य पदं मुरारेः । स शंबुकः शूद्रमुनिर्महीधराजेऽत्र धूम्राक्ष इति я: Ep. Ind., Vol. XXX, p. 17.
11 See एतानि तु सर्वभूतरोमहर्षणान्युन्मत्तचण्ड श्वापदकुलसंकुल गिरिगहराणि जनस्थानपर्यन्तदर्वारण्यानि दक्षिणां दिशमभिवर्तन्ते । Act. II.
12 See ftaufe: aqua C. I. I., Vol. V, p. 35.
13 See पन्चैः पुंसां रघुपति पंदेरतिं मेख V. 12.
14 See Studies in Indology, Vol. I, pp. 15 f.
15 Ibid., pp. 19 1.