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Sumati-Jñāna goddess of learning.
At the request of Ravideviyakka, Jinna, the best of the scribes of the age, copied the Dhavală commentary, with care and devotion. The joyous Ravideviyakka gladly gifted the precious and lovely recopied manuscript to Subhacandra, patriarch of the original Digambara congregation. The extent palm-leaf manuscript is unique in content and format. The length of each is 25 inches with a width of 3 inches each. The rare manuscript, containing 592 palm-leaves, is also embellished with diagrams and colour pictures. It was copied in CE 1112 in the holy premises of the Jains temple dedicated to Arhat Pārsva. The shrine, which no longer exists, was commissioned by Bācaladevī, beloved spouse of Bhujabala Ganga Permāạideva (1103-18), a feudatory of Tribhuvanamalla Vikramāditya VI (1076-1125), emperor of the Kalyāna Cālukya dynasty. Mahā-mandaleśvara Bhujabala Ganga Permādideva was chief of Mandali-Thousand principality which included a major portion of the modern Shimoga District in Karnātaka. The above Jina Pārsva temple was built in CE 1112 at Bannikere, a village near Shimoga.
Devamati alias Ravideviyakka, consort of Cāvunda Poysaļa Setti, was the daughter of Nāgaletāyi. Būcirāja was her brother and Dandanāyakitti Lakkale, wife of Dandanāyaka Gangarāja, was her sister. Devamati's daughter Ganga Mahādevī was queen consort of Bhujabala-Ganga Permadideva.
Caudhure Rakkasayya and Akkaņabbe, the ideal householders, had built two Jinālayas, and were singular for giving gifts and sāstra-dāna. Prince Sāntivarma, their son, merrily continued the family tradition of śāstra-dāna. Mallikabbe, śāntivarma's spouse by her matchless act of śāstra-dāna, carved a niche in a hall of fame. Udayāditya, her ward and a far famed scribe of the age was entrusted with the responsibility of recopying the Mahābandha, 'the Great Karmic Bond', the sixth khanda or part of the Șat-khaņda-Āgama, 'scripturein-six-parts', a huge commentary of 40,000 granthāgras. Mallikabbe, conso a pious lady votary, was over whelmed with joy to donate the recopied commentary to her preceptor Māghaņandi Siddhāntadeva. This act of śāstra-dāna coincided with the udyāpana, the ritual performed at the end of completing the religious vow of the śrī-pañcamī, without let.
Similarly, Bhujabala Anna Sresthi (early 12th century), leading trader and burgher, volunteered himself to arrange for a recopy of the Jaya-Dhavală, 'the victoriously luminous'. Accordingly, he got it copied from a proficient professional scribe and presented the same to ācārya Padmasenamuni.
The śāstradāna concept expanded the secular scope of dāna by leaps and bounds. Originally, in the context of the sikśāvratas, the vows of spiritual discipline, dāna was confined to giving alms to spiritually advanced persons, preferably mendicants. But, without loosing the kernel of the dāna concept, śāstradāna enlarged it immensely, and encouraged the meritorious pursuit of svādhyāya, the study of the scriptures.
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