Medieval Jainism

SR No.: 011082
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: Bhasker Anand Saletore
Publisher: Karnataka Publishing House
Total Pages: 448
Language: English
Classification: Book_English
File Size: 27 MB

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MEDIÆVAL JAINISM sitated General Irugappa's presence at the capital where we find him now as the Minister of king Harihara Rāya II. It is enough to note that here in the capital he built the caityālaya of Kunthu (or Kunqu) Jinanātha which was completed on February the 16th A.D. 1386. This is the temple which is wrongly called nowadays the Gāņigitti temple! The Jaina teacher Simhanandi mentioned in this inscription was perhaps the same Simhanandi Ācārya whose name appears in a record assigned to A.D. 1400 at Sravana Belgoļa.
There was another side to the remarkable Jaina statesman. Irugappa was an engineer as well. In A.D. 1394 he built the sluice of the tank at Kūņigal. The inscription found on the same sluice gives us the interesting information that he was a Sanskrit scholar, too, and that he wrote the Sanskrit work called Nānārtharatnākara.
This versatile statesman was the minister of king Harihara Raya II in A.D. 1403.3 But he continued to serve also in the reign of king Deva Rāya II.4 The Śravana Belgoļa inscription dated A.D. 1422 cited above informs us that in that year General Irugappa, in the presence of the Jaina guru śrutamuni, granted the village of Belguļa (Belgoļa itself) for the worship of Gummałeśvara.“ Our surmise
Inscriptions of Southern India, p. 203 (Ed. by S. K. Aiyangar, Madras, 1932). This work is incomplete, for it has not taken into account a number of inscriptions pertaining to the history of Vijayanagara and early times.
1. E. C. II. 276, p. 125.
2. M. A. R. for 1919, pp. 13, 33; E. C. II. p. Intr. p. 64; Rangacharya, Top. List., I. p. 311.
3. E. C. XII. Si 95, p. 101. 4. Ibid, II. Intr. p. 64. 5. Ibid, II. 253, op. cit.