________________
324
MEDIÆVAL JAINISM Dänavulapāļu, we shall find that in the fourteenth century it was still characterized by that robustness which had marked its career in the early times. Śravaņa Belgoļa naturally led all the other centres in sanctity and power. Pious people from different parts of the Vijayanagara Empire reckoned it to be the most celebrated place of pilgrimage. Hāleya Masaņaya was evidently one such pilgrim.1 Prominent nobles also visited Belgoļa. Thus in A.D. 1398 Hariyana and Māņikadeva were the disciples of the great (Cārukīrti) Panditadeva of that centre. These two nobles are called "the rulers of that region ", probably meaning thereby that they were in some manner connected with the region around Śravana Belgoļa.2
The year A.D. 1400 was, for some reasons unknown to us, memorable in the history of Śravaņa Belgoļa. For it is in that year that, as is proved by the many epigraphs of that date, quite a number of pilgrims visited Śravaņa Belgoļa.3
The great interest which the pontificate of Sravana Belgola took in purely political matters is seen in the manner it published news of the events concerning the whole Empire. When king Harihara Rāya II died in A.D. 1404 this event was recorded in a stone inscription dated in that year at Sravana Belgoļa. And when king Deva Rāya II died in A.D. 1446, that fact also was commemorated in two epigraphs of the same date in the same holy place.5 Information is not forthcoming to show why these events should
1. E.C. II., 311, p. 130. 2. Ibid., 171-173, 499, pp. 124-125, 134. 3. Ibid, 329, p. 140. 4. Ibid.
5. Ibid, 328, 330, pp. 139-140. Was it so because of the Jaina propensities of these rulers ?
