Temple of Satrunjaya

Author(s): Jain Bhawan Publication
Publisher: Jain Bhawan Publication

Page 60

people carried it up again, but in the ensuing night it was again brought down, and so on for twenty-one nights. Vajra Svami then arranged that the Yaksa and his followers, fortifying themselves by the Vajra mantra, should keep watch in the air, while Javada and his wife praying to Adijina and keeping in mind the five parameşthi should go to bed under the car, and Vajra remain beside the image with the whole Sangha, children, and women, till the morning, thinking of Adijina. Next day they carried the image to the temple, and carefully purified the sanctuary. The former Kapardi with a few Asuras concealed themselves in the old image, which Javada removed. The Asuras being fixed and entranced by the mantras of Vajra Svami, could not rush out, but they raised so terrific a noise that the earth shook, trees and temples fell and the mountain itself was split in two,--a Southern and Northern summit, and all the people except Vajra, Javada, and Jayamati, lost their senses. Vajra and the Yaksa then so frightened the former Kapardi that he escaped to the shore of the sea where he assumed another name in Candraprabhasaksetra. 113
Vajra now organised the service of the new temple and Javada and his wife mounted to its summit to erect the banner. They then praised their good fortune in being successful in the arduous undertaking, and in having Vajra Svami as an instructor, by whose aid they had had the assistance of Kapardi. But owing to their very advanced age both husband and wife were so overcome with joy at the event that their hearts broke. The Vyantara divinities took up the bodies and cast them into the sea of milk while Cakresvari informed their son Jajanaga, who was waiting with the Sangha, of the death of his parents. Jajanaga followed his father's example, worshipping the Jinas on Mount Raivata (Girnar) and elsewhere and erecting caityas. "The death of Javada," adds the Māhātmya, "took place at the end of the 108th year after Vikramaditya", 114_that is about A.D. 52.
When some time had passed after this, "the Bauddhas, tutoring the princes by their wisdom and difficult to be conquered by opponents", obtained the ascendancy, put all other systems aside, introduced their
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This seems to piont to Somanatha or Prabhasa Pattana, where, as is well-known, Siva was worshiped as Somesvara-'Lord of the Moon'. The Mahatmya or legend of the Somanatha temple, said to be a part of the Skanda Purana, is entitled Prabhasa Ksetra Mahatmya'. See Jour. Bom. Br. R. Asiat. Soc., Vol. II, p. 14. As Weber suggests, this legend seems to point to a struggle between Saivism and Jainism. Satr. Mahat., XIV, 280. A Gujarati MS. Account of the ages and founders of the different temples, obtained at Palitana, calls this the thirteenth uddhara or restoration of the temple, executed by Javadasa in Samvat 1018, i.e., A.D. 961, quite as probable a date as that of the Mahatmya.