Jainism and Karnataka Culture

SR No.: 011062
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: S R Sharma
Publisher: Karnataka Historical Research Society Dharwar
Publication Year: 1940
Total Pages: 263
Language: English
Classification: Book_English
File Size: 9 MB

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at the same time the most perfect toleration seems to have been extended to all other creeds. Both the Jaina and the Buddha faiths were openly professed, the former to a great extent,— a considerable portion of the inscriptions recording grants to temples of that persuasion." He continues, These varieties of faith and this general toleration, are the more remarkable from the spirit of religious hatred and persecution which was soon after aroused.147 According to Fleet, Jainism was a popular sect under Bijjala when Basava established the Lingayat form of Saivism.148 And alone among the patrons of Jainism in South India, the Kalacuri grants have a sitting Tirthankara with his usual attendants, etc.149 But, in keeping with the tradition of most Indian rulers, and consistently with the principles of his own Jaina religion, Bijjala appears to have favoured the Vira-Śaivas, at whose hands he was soon to meet with a violent death. In a contest between the Lingayats and Jainas at Ablur (near Dharwar), in the year Saka 1089, Bijjala gave a decision in favour of the former and even rewarded their leader Ekāntada Ramayya." 150 Bijjala's successor, Someswara, similarly made a grant to a Brāhmaṇa temple at Belgaum.151
HISTORICAL SURVEY
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The traditional account of the life of Basava, the founder of Vira-Saivism or Lingāyatism is given in Bhima-Kavi's BasavaPurāna. Having heard from Nārada that Śaivism was on a decline on the earth, Šiva resolved upon sending Nandi his vehicle to the mortals to reform and reclaim them to the true religion they had forsaken. Nandi incarnated himself as
147 Elliot, Hindu Inscription. J. R. A. S. IV (1836), pp. 18-19. 148 Fleet, Dynasties of the Kanarese Districts. p. 60
149 Elliot, Hindu Inscriptions J. R. A. S. IV, p. 12. 150 Ibid, p, 17, Krishnaswamy Aiyangar, Contribution, p. 253. 151 Cf. Bhandarkar, Early History of the Dekkan, p. 95.
152 An English rendering of the Basava Purana is published by Rev. G. Würth, J. B. Br. B. A. S. Vol. VIII. pp. 65-98 and of the Canna Basava Purāna at pp. 98-222 of the same Volume,