South Indian Inscriptions

EPIGRAPHIA INDICA

TWO JAINA INSCRIPTIONS IN TAMIL

songs in honour of Śiva, composed by Appar and others.^[1] But here it appears to have been used in a somewhat different sense, viz., a group of sculptures for worship as indicated by the context.^[2]

Having examined the meaning of the term tēvāram, we may now ascertain its nature as designed by Puttaḍigaḷ. As seen above, the two boulders meeting each other with intervening space, have themselves improvised a natural shrine. Then we have to turn to the Jaina vestiges therein. These are the figures of Gommaṭa carved near the present inscription on one boarder, and of Pārśvanātha on the other ; and the fairly big sculpture of Padmāvatī placed in the intervening hollow. From its very nature, size and the central position, the icon of Padmāvatī assumes the principal role among these Jaina relics. We can now see the part played by Puttaḍigaḷ in the making of this tēvāram. Being a natural formation, he, of course, had nothing to do in its creation. He simply incised the figures of Gommaṭa and Pārśvanātha on the adjoining boulders to represent the side deities and installed the main image of Padmāvatī in the intermediate spot. It is for doing these things that he takes credit in the epigraph as the maker of the tēvāram. We may note here with interest the position of vantage enjoyed by Padmāvatī ; for she is the Yakshī of Pārśvanātha and thus occupies subordinate place in the hierarchy of Jaina divinities.^[3]

Happily, another similar instance has come to our notice. It is an inscription at Vaḷḷimalai. This record,^[4] which is styled ‘A’, is similarly carved on the rock of a natural cave, below a group of sculptures, and speaks of the foundation of the Jaina shrine (vasati), evidently referring to the cave itself with Jaina relics,^[5] by the Gaṅga prince Rājamalla

INSCRIPTION II

This epigraph6 is incised on a beam of the mahāmaṇḍapa in front of the central shrine in the temple of Ādinātha Tīrthaṅkara at Ponnūr, a village in the Wandiwash taluk of the North Arcot District. The inscription is slightly damaged and comprises two lines. The script is both Grantha and Tamil. The characters are late. Medial short and long e are distinguished. Medial ai is denoted by placing either single-looped two spirals or one double-looped spiral behind

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^[1] Tamil Lexicon (University of Madras, 1929), p. 2069.
^[2] As the precise significance of the expression tēvāram used here is not certain, we may take into consideration other possibilities. According to the lexicographer tēvāram also means ‘deity worshipped privately in a house’. Further, it may not be unreasonable to connect it with the Sanskrit dēvāgāra, in which case it would mean ‘a shrine’. Use of the word dēhāra in the sense of ‘a shrine’ is found in an 11th century Kannaḍa inscription in the Bellary District ; SII, Vol. IX, part i, No. 115. The expression dēvhārā is current in the Marāṭhī language in the sense of ‘a shrine for private worship.’
^[3] B. C. Bhattacharya : Jaina Iconography, p. 82.
^[4] Above, Vol. IV, pp. 140-41.
^[5] This was one of the peculiar aspects of Jainism in the Tamil country, as I have noticed in the course of my survey of the Jaina antiquities. The hill tracts with natural caverns and rocky shelters had a great attraction for the Jaina teacher and the devotee who transformed them into sacred resorts and centres of religious practices. Besides the two places dealt with above, a large number of hill spots invested with Jaina relics has come to light so far ; see An. Rep. on S. I. Epigraphy for 1923, p. 3 ; above, Vol. IV, p. 136 ; Mad. Ep. Rep. for 1887, p. 3 ; etc. From the association of the ‘triple umbrella,’ which is a characteristic emblem of the Jina, with the rocky beds at Śēdarampaṭṭu in the North Arcot District (An. Rep. on S. I. Epigraphy for 1939-40 to 1942-43, p. 11), it can now be safely asserted that at least some of similar couches, popularly known as the ‘Pañchapāṇḍava beds’, found in a large number in many parts, were the creations of Jaina monks who were pioneers of the faith in the Tamil country. For a detailed description of these relics see Proceedings and Transactions of Third Oriental Conference, pp. 275 ff.
^[6] This was copied by the Madras Epigraphist’s office in 1929. It is registered as No. 416 of Appendix B in the year’s collection and briefly noticed on p. 88 of the year’s Report.