________________
88
Hampa Nagarajaiah
Nirgrantha
There is also a reference to this basadi in an inscription of Ganga Mārasimha
I and of Rācamalla I. 4.1. Gangas' earliest fort on Nandagiri also had a royal Jina-mandira which has lost
all its early traits excepting a later inscription of the eighth century A. D. where there is a reference to Dharanendra : Svarggāpa-vargga-padayos-sopānapadavibhūtāya dhara-dhara-Dharnendra-sya phaņa-mani-līlānukārine [EC. X (1905). C B. 29. c. A. D. 750) : a path to the attainment of svarga/moksa, like the jewel in the head of (the serpent) Dharanendra, who bears the world (ibid., p. 205). This is the earliest epigraphical reference to Dharanendra; and in the foregoing discussion was noticed the earliest inscriptional reference to Padmāvati (CKI: p. 87]. Pomburca, the present Hombūja (Humca) in Shimoga District, was the capital of the Säntaras, a dynasty who ruled for nearely a thousand years uninterrupted. [Nagarājaiah, Hampa : 1997-A). Sāntara, a local (tribal) dynasty was absorbed into the alien Maha-Ugra dynasty from the Mathurā region in the north, headed by a brave leader Jinadatta who belonged to one of the oldest royal families in India, in the early 7th century A. D. [EC. VIII (BLR) Nagara. 35-36. A. D. 1077.] : Arhat Pārsva also belongs to this Mahā-Ugra-vaṁśa in the southern Jaina tradition. Padmāvati-devī, according to the tradition, blessed Jinadatta with a lioncrest and a Vānara-dhvaja (a banner bearing the monkey-symbol). He and his successors erected a number of Jaina temples, those of Pārśva and Padmāvati
being more conspicuous. 5.1. Tolāpurusa-Vikrama-Sāntara (A. D. 895-935) built a Bāhubali temple in the year
A. D. 898 on the hill at Hombūja (ibid., No. 60.) Paliyakka, a paramour of Vikrama-Sāntara, also constructed two temples in A. D. 895-96, one of these being a stone building dedicated to Pārsva, which exists intact in the premises of the Pañca-basti (ibid., No. 45. A. D. 898). The pillars inside this temple having taranga-potikā (roll bracket) stylistically are of the late Rāstrakūta period. There are two magnificent Pārśva images of the ninth century carved to perfection, depicting as they do the Jaina mythological episode of the Kamathopasarga, kept inside Hombūja's Pārsva temple of the 11th century in the spacious hall which has an entrance from all the three sides. Jina Pārsva, the mülanayaka, sitted in the paryankāsana, is a feast to the eye (Dhaky (ed) :
1996 : 281-84). 5.2.1. On the Kundādri Hill (Shimoga Dt / Tīrthahalli Tk) attached to the administration
of Hombūja matha and included in the Sāntalige-1000, there is a Pārsva temple. A mutilated Pārsva image (in kāyotsarga), about 8' high, is now kept outside the temple; it is assigned to the 10th-11th c. A. D. (A new image has replaced it.) A rare feature of this old image is that, on its body, there are two cobra symbols.
5.2.
Jain Education International
For Private & Personal Use Only
www.jainelibrary.org
