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174
MEDIEVAL JAINISM
across Aştopavāsa Kalnele Devar who set a nisidhi in memory of his guru. This person is described as having been a moving tirtha suggesting thereby that he was a citizen of exceptional piety.1
Evidence concerning the genuine endeavours made by the people to perpetuate the Jina dharma became more and more prominent in the succeeding generations. In about A.D. 1060 during the reign of the king Kacchara Kandarpa Senamāra, Niravadyayya was granted Mahendravoļalu. This citizen was the disciple of Mahadeva Bhaļāra of the Devagana and the Pāṣāṇānvaya. Niravadyayya erected a Jinalaya after his own name on the Melasa rock, and bestowed on it the village he had received from the king. And the representatives of the adjoining country called the Eḍemale 1,000 granted each from their paddy fields a specified measure of rice.2
The real clue to the understanding of the high position which Jainism held in the land is seen in the ardour and devotion of the commercial classes. One of the powerful officials of the king Vira Santara Deva in A.D. 1062 was the Pattaṇasvāmi (Lord Mayor) Nokkayya Setți. This commercial magnate constructed the Pattanasvāmi Jinālaya in Humcca for the worship, etc., he presented the village called Molakere had bought from the king for 100 gadyānas. The donee is called the Sahudharma Sakalacandradeva, but Nokkayya's guru was Divakaranandideva. Nokayya, who had the title of Samyaktva-vārāsi, had images of the Jina gods in
of which
which he
1. M. A. R. for 1913-1914, p. 38. The late Mr. Narasimhacarya identified the guru mentioned here with his namesake spoken of in another record as having been the disciple of Sridharadeva. 2. E. C. VI. Cm, 75, pp. 43-44.
