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JAINA CELEBRITIES IN THE VIJAYANAGARA EMPIRE 385
native of Śravaņa Belgoļa ; and in his work Bhujabalcarite (A.D. 1614) he tells us that the famous head anointing cere: mony of Gommațanātha was performed in A.D. 1612.1
And the head-anointing ceremony of the other famous statue of Gommața of Kārkaļa was performed by the king Immadi Bhairavendra of Kārkaļa in A.D. 1646. This we gather from Candrama's Kārkaļa Gommațeśvaracarite, which was written at the command of Lalitakīrti and under the patronage of the same ruler Bhairavendra.?
One of the last Jaina literary writers who falls within the limits of our study is Devarasa (circa A.D. 1650). In his Gurudattacarite he tells us that near the town of Pūgatatāka in Karnāțaka, was a hill which contained the basadi of Pārsvajina. On this hill, the author narrates, the famous Jina sage Pūjyapada has conducted experiments in alchemy (Siddharasa).3
The Jainas have written not only on purely literary and theological subjects but also on those pertaining to medicine. The Vijayanagara age, it may be observed here, contained quite a number of clever physicians—both Brahman and Jaina—who have been noticed in literature and records. A peculiarity of the Jainas is that they have left evidence of their knowledge of medicine in literary works. In the early Vijayanagara period the most well known
1. Kavicarite, II. pp. 351-359. 2. Ibid, II. pp. 371-372.
3. Ibid, II. pp. 391-392. Pāyanavarni, the disciple of Panditacārya and a native of Sravana Belgoļa, composed in Kannada in A.D. 1659 jñānacandracarite. This story, according to the author, was originally written in Prākṣit by Vāsavacandra, and subsequently rendered into Kannada śat padi by Pūjyapadayogi, and Pāyaṇavarņi wrote in the sāngat ya metre basing it on the sat padi work. M. A. R. for 1919, p. 53. M.J. 13.
