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E.-M. Glasbrenner, The Gommateśvara Mahāmastakābhiseka Ritual
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The name "Shravana Belagola" of the present town has been known in this form since the beginning of the nineteenth century. A śravana or śramana is a wandering ascetic Jaina monk. The word "Beļago!a" has been attested continuously for the period between 650 and 1889" and means "white pond". The earlier name of the holy place, "Gommatapura", after the installation of the Bāhubali image' refers to the same: "Gommata"13 is Bāhubali, "pura" is the town. The myth of Bāhubali will be summarized below.
The term "Religionsästhetik" "Religionsästhetik" or "Religionsaisthetik"? These terms concerning the proper nomenclature of this rather new discipline are one of the points being discussed within the group of scholars who try a new perspective within the study of religion regarding that matter. As there is no differentiation in the English language between "Ästhetik" and "Aisthetik", the English term "esthetics" would cover both. To understand the question we have to go back to the old Greek term aisthesis (aioOnouc), meaning sensory perception, which is especially interesting for the religious perspective, as we see in: aionous Tõv Oeñv, the usage as the sensory perception of the gods, and the verb being aisthanesthai (aiodáveoai), to perceive. The German term "Ästhetik" reaches back to Alexander Gottlieb Baumgarten (1741-1762) who in his "Aesthetica" (1750/1758) uses this term to designate the science of sensory perception, the memory, the concept of beauty and the fine arts. Nowadays the term "Ästhetik" will generally mean the perspective regarding the beauty or harmony of an object, most often directly connected to a subject that will be traditionally treated by art historians. The disciplines of philosophy and literature will also have "esthetics" as one of their major fields of research. So we basically have to differentiate esthetics of "beauty" (however "beauty" may be defined), esthetics of (material) art, and esthetics of sensory perception. Esthetics of religion applies the question or the questions of esthetics not to objects or theories of art or the analysis of literary works, but on phenomena taking place in religious contexts which could include -- but certainly not exclusively -- art and texts. As "Ästhetik" in German refers only to the art historian and philosophical
" Settar, p. 59. 12 Only after 1159, the place had the name Gommatapura (Settar, p. 35). 13 According to one view, gommata is derived from the Prakrit gammaha for manmatha (kāmadeva, a category of beings to which, according to Jaina mythology, also Bāhubali belongs); this is said to have become gammața or gommata in the Kannada language. According to another view, gommața is a loanword from the Konkani language, in which gomato or gommato means 'beautiful' (Sangave, p. 77). According to Settar (p. 45) Bāhubali got the nickname 'Gommata' only 225 years after the installation. Also there are the names Dorbali, Saunandi, and the variations Gummata, Gummatta, Gamata, Gomata. Settar mentions another explanation, namely, that Gummadi is a Prakrit name of Kusmāndinīdevī. 14 Cancik/Mohr, Religionsästhetik, p. 121 (Cancik, Hubert/ Mohr, Hubert, in: Cancik, Hubert/ Gladigow, Burkhard/ Laubscher, Matthias (Ed.), Handbuch religionswissenschaftlicher Grundbegriffe (HRGW). Band I. Verlag W. Kohlhammer: Stuttgart 1988, pp. 121-156).
