________________
374
Raya, the son of Saluva Narasimha, he wiped out the company of speakers of other creeds by the power of his speech. There is another reference to the imperial capital in a later context, where it is said that in the court of Vidyanagari of the victorious lord Kṛṣṇa Rāya, defeating the company of the learned, like a lion (overcoming) an elephant, with the talons of his just argument, and his lucid intelligence, Vidyanandamuni gained world-wide fame.
No Jaina guru in the Vijayanagara age had a more glorious list of achievements than Vādi Vidyānanda. We have shown elsewhere that the various rulers mentioned in this record were, indeed, historical personages; and that on the strength of this and other inscriptions, we could date the many triumphs of Vadi Vidyananda between the years A.D. 1502 and A.D. 1530.1
MEDIEVAL JAINISM
What concerns us, in addition to the details relating to the remarkable personality of Vādi Vidyānanda, is the fact that the Padmavati basti record should mention the names of various provincial seats which were centres of Jaina learning. Some of them, it must be confessed, cannot be identified for want of definite data. But there cannot be any doubt that in addition to the courts of the Saluva kings of Sangitapura, Deva Raya, Sangi Raya, and Kṛṣṇa Rāja, and those of Gerasoppe and Karkala, there were other courts as well where Jainism was honoured--that of the unidentified Satavendra king Kesarivikrama, of the king Gurunṛpāla, and of the king Narasimha of Bilige.
There is one statement in the above record which is of particular interest. It is that concerning Vadi Vidyananda's success in Sriranganagara (i.e., Seringapatam). Here Vādi
1. See my paper entitled Vadi Vidyananda-a Renowned Jaina Guru published in the Jaina Antiquary, IV, pp. 1-21.
