Mysore and Coorg from the Inscriptions c14.7

c14.7

The worship of Śiva was from an early period specially associated with an ancient teacher named Lakulīśa, who apparently can be traced back as far as the first century (JRAS, 1907, p. 419). His name frequently recurs in our inscriptions (see Si 28, Sk 126, 107, 104, 108), and his creed and sect are referred to as the Lākulāgama (Ak 62), Lākulāmnāya, Lākula-samaya (Sk 107), etc. But there must have been a succession of gurus of the name. For Si 28 in 943 says that Lakulīśa, fearing lest his name and works of merit should be forgotten, became incarnate in the muninātha Chilluka. And Sk 126 records a grant made in 1036 to a Lakulīśvara; perhaps he was the same as the one mentioned in a grant of 1020 in Mēlpāḍi in North Arcot (SII. iii. 27). Sk 107, of about 1078, describes a Vālmīki-muni as being (?) a hand to Lakula. Sk 94 in 1094 praises Śrīkaṇṭha-paṇḍita as himself Lakulīśa, while Sk 98 in 1103 says that his son Sōmēśvara-paṇḍita caused the Lākula-siddhānta to blossom; and Sk 92 and 96, of 1168 and 1179, compare the rājaguru Vāmaśakti with Lakulīśvara or Nakulīśvara. But farther, Tp 12 of 1285 speaks of Lakula’s new samaya. As hitherto generally known, Lakulīśvara was the founder, in about the eleventh century, of the Pāśupata sect, and this was at Kārōhana in the Lāṭa country, which Dr. Bühler identified with Kārvān in Barōda. The Lakula of our inscriptions belongs to the period between 1054 and 1156, and is generally mentioned in connection with the Kālāmukha sect, who are described as a branch of the Śakti-parshe in the Mūvara-kōneya-santati of the Parvvatāvali (Jl 10, Sk 107, 114, 316, Bl 117, Sk 104, 108). There is a list in Ck 35 of a succession of gurus of the Agastyēśvara maṭha at Śrīparvvata, all whose names end in śakti.