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EPIGRAPHIA JAINICA. 35 Mallikharjuna temple, in S. 1433, Prajõtpatti, Vagha, ba. di. 14, Monday, a lengthy account of the gifts made to the temple of Sreesailan by a certain chief Linga, the son of Santa, who was evidently a Vīrasaiva, one of his pious acts being the beheading of the Svetambara Jainas." This record is important in two ways. It shows how the Saivite opposition gathering force in the Andhra dēsa against Jainism about the first quarter of the eleventh century A.D. developed into an exterminating persecution by the first quarter of the sixteenth century A.D. and how the . Svētāmbaras also are represented in South Indian Jainism as a class deserving the expurgatory attention of the Saiva fanatics.
In this respect the records from the AndhraKarnāta districts tell a different tale justifying the remarko made in the former chapter about the kindlier treatment of Jainism in the AndhraKarnāta, and Karnāta districts proper. A few grants to Jaina foundations by non-Jainas about the year S. 1433 and following deserve notice in this context.
The smaller Venkataramana temple at Chippigiri in the Bellary District records a grant in S. 1528 to a Jaina foundation by Sri Krishnadēvarāya of Vijayanagar.
At Kurugodu in the same district, a record of the time of Vīrapratāpa Sadāsiyadēvarāya Mahārāya of Vijayanagar, on the south wall of a ruined temple, mentions in S. 1467, Visvavasu,
