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PRINCELY PATRONAGE side of the Rāştrakūta capital Mānyapura (mod. Manne in the Nelamangala tāluka).1
The devotion of another Rāştrakūta noble brings to light a Jaina author of considerable celebrity. This is Lokāditya, the son of Bankeyarasa, of the Cellekētana (or Cellapatāka) family. He was the governor of Bankāpura in Vanavāsa, under king Krşņa II, Akālavarşa, and was a Jaina himself. Under his patronage Lokasena composed the Mahāpurāņasangraha in Saka 820 in the reign of the king Akālavarşa who ruled from A.D. 884 till A.D. 913. This is mentioned by Lokasena himself in the above Jaina work. We know that Lokāditya was placed over the same provincial capital in the same year from another Jaina author Guņabhadra's prasasti to the latter's Uttarapurāņa. From this work we learn that Lokasena was the chief disciple of Guņabhadra, and that Lokāditya caused the increase of the religion of Jinendra.3
These examples of genuine Jaina devotion pale into insignificance before the determined efforts of one great family whose pious exertions ranging over two centuries and more were greatly responsible for the firm stand Jainism made in southern India. The history of these powerful princes called the Säntaras has yet to be written. They belonged to the Ugra-varśa, and appear for the first time in the seventh century A.D. in the reign of the Western Cālukya king Vinayā. ditya. The founder of this line in the south was Jinadatta
1. E. c. XII, Gb. 61, pp. 30-31 ; ibid., Intr. p. 5. Was the Mahāsāmanta Gosgi mentioned in a stone record of circa A.D. 950 in Sravana Belgoļa, also a Jaina ? Ibid. II, Intr. p. 48; 152, p. 77.
2. Rangachary-Kuppuswami, Trien. Cat. of Skt. Mss. in the Madras Oriental Library for 1910-1913, p. 218. seq.
3. 1. A. XII, pp. 216-217 ; Fleet, Dyn. Kan. Dts., p. 411 ; Moraes, Kadamba-kula, p. 83.
