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extensive ornamentation (Plate 30.4). The priests (arcaka) who perform the daily morning worship of the two goddesses pay more attention to Padmāvatī than to Kuşmāndinī, especially on Fridays, the day dedicated to Padmāvatī. The people who come to worship her on that day are almost exclusively Jains who live in the village of Sravana Belgola. On that day she receives four ablutions, of water, milk, water with
dalwood paste mixed in it, and finally water again (Plate 30.5). The icon is then dried off and ornamented. The priest goes outside the temple to crack open a coconut, and brings the two halves inside to offer before the goddess. He then performs the standard eight-fold worship (Vasantharaj 1985), concluding with the performance of āratī, the waving of a flaming lamp in front of the icon. He brings the metal plate with the lamp on it out of the cell for onlookers to wave their hands above the flame and then touch their hands to their faces as blessing. In return, some of the onlookers place a small monetary offering on the plate. Next the priest brings the bowl used to collect the ablution liquid, and uses a flower blossom to sprinkle the water on the onlookers, while speaking a Sanskrit mantra that says that this blessed water will remove all sins (pāpa), and result in all one's undertakings being successful. Finally he hands the two halves of the broken coconut to the lay person who has been the patron for that day's worship, who in turn breaks it into smaller pieces to distribute to everyone present. This worship is the same as that performed to an icon of a Jina and to the large icon of Bāhubali, with the only exception being that the Sanskrit mantras are directed to Padmāvatī (and then Kuşmāndini) instead of to a liberated being. While the icon of Padmāvatī in the Kattale Basati atop Candragiri is believed to be the oldest Padmāvatī icon at Sravana Belgola, and so plays an important role in the protection of the entire site, another icon of her in the village is more popular, in large part because it is much more easily accessible. Across a square from the matha of the bhattāraka is the Bhandārī Basati, the largest temple in the entire sacred complex. It is so-called because it was commissioned in 1159 by Hullarāja, the treasurer (bhandārī) of the Hoysala king Narasimha I, who in turn dedicated the income of a village to its upkeep (Sangave 1981, 18-19). It is also known as the Caturvimšati Tīrthankara Basati, because instead of a single main icon, its main altar area contains a row of nearly identical icons of the twenty-four Jinas. On either side of the large pavilion in the front part of the temple are two cells, one containing an icon of the important male deity Brahmadeva, and the other an icon of Padmāvatī (Plates 30.6, 30.7). Both of them receive regular attention from worshipers, especially early in the morning and in the evening. Some people even come for darśana of these two deities and do not proceed further into the temple for darśana of the Jina icons. There is a string of bangles in the cell of the Padmāvati icon. While these may be given to her in response to the granting of many different petitions, they are given most often as thanks for the
8 See Settar (1971a) on this deity, whose cult is distinctive to south Indian Digambara Jainism.
