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SVASTI - Essays in Honour of Prof. Hampa Nagarajaiah
pious Jain laywoman named Ambikā was forced to flee her home along with her two sons due to the anger of her husband, a Brahmin named Soma. During their wandering, several miracles occurred due to the woman's piety. When her husband eventually ran after her to bring her back, she feared more violence, and so she and her sons jumped into a well to save themselves. She was reborn as the goddess Ambikā, who was the yakṣī or sāsanadevī of the twenty-second Jina, Neminātha. That he was the one Jina who was born, lived, and attained liberation in Saurashtra confirms the regional origin of her myth. Her story also conforms to those of many Saurashtrian and Gujarati goddesses, who are the reincarnations of virtuous and pious women who died from unfortunate and violent causes.
Kusmāndinī in Karnataka is especially associated with Sravana Belgola, for she is the guardian deity of the site. Robert Zydenbos (2000:87-88) has observed that each of the three important goddess shrines is also the seat of a bhattāraka, so we see that these two distinctive aspects of southern Digambara ritual culture are closely connected. At Hombuja and Simhanagadde, the largest temples—and so putatively the main onesare of the Jinas Pārsvanātha and Candraprabha, respectively. Even a cursory observation of the attention of pilgrims indicates, however, that most if not all of them come primarily to worship the goddesses, not the Jinas. At Sravana Belgola, on the other hand, there is no central temple of Neminātha, as one would expect since Kusmāndini is his sāsanadevī. There is no mythic or iconographic connection between her and Bāhubali. Her role as guardian of the shrine, therefore, either precedes the consecration of the Bāhubali icon in 981 A.D., or else further shows how the cults of the Jain goddesses in Karnataka are only loosely tied to those of the Jinas. The principal icon of Kuşmāņdinī is not on either of the two hills, but in a cell in the temple to the Jina Candraprabha (also known here as Candranātha) next to the matha (monastery) that is the seat of the bhattāraka (Plates 30.1, 30.2). The doorway to her cell is gilt with gold, adding to her luster. This icon is worshiped daily by ablution (abhiseka) and offerings (pūjā). While this temple is not visited by many pilgrims, who tend to focus their devotional attention upon the icon of Bāhubali on Vindhyagiri, a small number of people come every day to receive her sacred gaze (darśana). Tuesday is the day of the week devoted to Kuşmāndinī, so more people come for her gaze on that day. Her icon is elaborately adorned every day with a tall silver crown, silver and jeweled ornaments, flowers, and silk cloth, so her darśana is a visually rich experience. Kuşmāndinī is not the only goddess in this temple, as there are also icons of Padmāvatī and Jvālāmālinī, both of which are also worshiped and elaborately decorated every day.
goddess Anaitis; an ancient goddess associated with the mango tree; and a goddess associated with the ancient tribe of the Kūşmandas. 5 The Marathi pilgrim pamphlet by Deśmāne (1987), which I purchased in 1989, also tells the origin myth of Kuşmāndini while tying the goddess to Sravana Belgola.
