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South Indian Inscriptions |
EPIGRAPHIA INDICA on the feet of śrī-Nāgavardhana who is believed to have been a god or a religious teacher.[1] It is not impossible that the king’s guru Sudarśana was the head of a Śaiva religious order and that Nāgavardhana was one of his successors in that position. But the Talamanchi plates[2] of Vikramāditya I speaks of one, śrī-Mēghāchārya of the Vāsishṭha gōtra, as his svakīya-guru. This grant was issued on the 13th July 660 A. D. in the sixth regnal year of the king, i.e. shortly after the issue of the charter under study. This may suggest that Sudarśanāchārya was succeeded as head of the order or organisation in question, soon after the king’s initiation, by Mēghāchārya who was probably himself succeeded by Nāgavardhana. It is interesting to note that Meghāchārya and Nāgavardhana are not mentioned in the list of Brāhmaṇas who were benefited by the grant under discussion and do not therefore appear to have taken part in the initiation ceremony of the Chālukya king. Alternatively it may be suggested that Mēghāchārya was the king’s śikshā-guru just as Sudarśana was his dīkshā-guru, though in such a case his relationship with Nāgavardhana cannot be determined.
The devotees of the great god, called variously by such names as Śiva, Paśupati and Mahēśvara, were generally known in early times as Śaiva, Pāśupata or Māhēśvara, although the three expressions gradually came to indicate different sects of the god’s votaries. In epigraphic and numismatic records, the royal devotees of the deity usually call themselves Māhēśvara, The Mahābhāshya[3] of Patañjali, who flourished in the second century B.C., mentions a sect of Śiva-worshippers as Śiva-bhāgavata (i.e. devotee of Śiva, the Bhagavat ; identified with Kāpālika in Nāgēśa’s Uddyōta), who used to carry an iron lance in the hand. The same work also alludes to the construction of images of Śiva as well as of Skanda and Viśākha, for sale.[4] In the first or second century A. D., a great Śaiva saint named Lakulin (literally, ‘the bearer of the club’) or Lakulīśa, flourished at Kāyāvarōhaṇa (modern Karvan in the Dabhoi Taluk of the old Baroda State now in Bombay) and he founded a new school of Śaivism.[5] Owing to the great popularity and influence of this school Lakulin came to be regarded as an incarnation of the god Śiva and Lākula became another name of the Śaiva, Pāśupata or Māhēśvara faith. Lakulin is said to have had four pupils, viz. Kuśika, Garga, Mitra and Kaurushya, while his ascetic followers are stated to have resorted to the yōga of Mahēśvara and besmeared their bodies with ashes.[6] According to the Chinese traveller Hiuentsang who visited India in the seventh century, the ascetics devoted to Mahēśvara went about naked, tied their hair in a top-knot and besmeared their bodies with ashes.[7] Gradually the name Pāśupata came to be more or less specially applied to the said ascetics. The present Kannaḍa-speaking area was a great stronghold of Śaivism, especially of the school of Lakulin, in the early medieval period. A sculpture on the outer wall of the temple of Virūpāksha (built by a queen of Chālukya Vikramāditya II, 733-45 A.D.) at Paṭṭadakal in the Bijapur District represents Śiva in the form of Lakulīśa.[8] In Karṇāṭaka was born a great Śaiva ascetic, named Muninātha Chilluka-bhaṭāra, who, according to an inscription of 943 A.D. from Mysore, was regarded as an incarnation of Lakulin.[9] An ascetic is called an ornament of the Lākula school and another a follower of the same faith in an inscription of about 1078 A. D.,[10] while a record of 1103 ____________________________________________________
[1] Bomb. Gaz., op. cit., p. 364.
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