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MEDIÆVAL JAINISM of the locality. This is proved by the concluding lines of the epigraph which run thus—“The merchants who were the protectors of that Jinālaya, born in the eminent line of Khandali and Mülabhadra, devoted to truth and purity, possessed of the lion's valour, skilled in conducting various kinds of trade with many seaports, adorned with the famous three jewels (viz., samyak-jñāna (right knowledge), samyakdarśana (right faith), and samyak-carita (right conduct)), the merchants residing at the holy Belgoļa acquired celebrity on earth."1
For more than a century this noble monument continued to be under the protection of the Jaina merchants of the same tīrtha. This is proved by the records dated A.D. 1279 and A.D. 1288. In the former it is said that the Pūjāris of the Nakhara Jinalaya, agreeing among themselves, gave a deed to all the merchants of Belgoļa in which the priests promised the merchants to carry on all the services in the Nagara Jinālaya “agreeable to the scale fixed by the merchants."
The latter epigraph dated A.D. 1288 is more explicit on the question of the direct control exercised by the merchants of Śravaņa Belgoļa in the management of the Nagara Jinālaya. All the jewel merchants of that place and Jinanāthapura agreeing among themselves, signed a deed by which they unanimously gave for the repairs of the temple of the god Ādi of the same Jinālaya, certain specified duties. The penalty imposed on those who violated this agreement and the signatures of the merchants clearly prove the corporate nature of the deed. The penalty is expressed thus—“If one denies or conceals (his income) in this matter, his race shall be childless; he shall be a traitor to the god, a traitor to
1 E. C. II, 335, p. 143. See also ibid., Intr., p. 33, n. (1).
