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MEDIÆVAL JAINISM
In the reign of the next monarch Ballāļa III, whose age heralds the Vijayanagara epoch, a large section of the people was still devoted to the anekāntamata. Bāhubali Sețți and Pārisetti had constructed the Ekköți Jinālaya which contained the god Padmaprabha. A tank was needed for the Jinālaya and lands to meet the expenses of worship. And Areya Māreya Nāyaka built the tank, while the lands below it were given as a gift to the basadi by various Nāyakas (named) of Kabbālu, along with the Jaina gurus Nēmicandra Paņạita and Bälacandra mentioned above. These latter, we may note by the way, were the disciples of the rājagutu Nayakirti. But we are unable to determine whether Nayakirti was the rājaguru of king Ballāļa III. These details are gathered from a stone record dated only in the cyclic year Srimukha Vaišākha.?
Nēmicandra mentioned above may be identified with his namesake spoken of in an undated and defaced inscription found at Toļalu. In this record it is said that the village of Navilūr was granted to that Jaina guru, for the services in the basadi at the same place, by Hiriya Mudda Gāvunda, Bili Gaunda, and fifty-two residents of that locality.2
Turning now to the various centres in and outside Karnātaka from where Jainism radiated, we find that, while most of them completely passed into the hands of the votaries of other religions, a few continued to remain strongholds of Jainism throughout all the ages. In the centres which fell into the hands of the non-Jainas, only mutilated Jaina images and broken slabs bear silent testimony to the once prosperous condition of Jainism in the country. The centres of Jainism may be divided into two groups—the major centres
1. M. A. R. for 1927, P. 46. 2. Ibid, p. 44.
