Social and Political Life in the Vijayanagara Empire (A.D. 1346 – A.D. 1646) v2.c21.s3.t9.32

v2.c21.s3.t9.32

The dismal details given by Caesar Frederick and Gasparo Balbi about the manner they "made a wall round about in a pit in the earth", may be contrasted with the following accounts of the death of a few Jainas in the latter half of the fourteenth and beginning of the fifteenth centuries. A stone inscription, dated A.D. 1372, refers us to the reign of Vīra Bukka Rāya, when the rāja-guru, head of the Balatkāra-gaṇa, Simhanandi Āchārya's lay-disciple, Soraba Vīra Gauḍa's daughter, wife of the Āḷva-mahā-prabhu Tavanidhi Brahma, Lakshmī Bommakkā, with the rites of samādhi expired and went to svarga.¹ An effaced inscription assigned to about the year A.D. 1400 relates the following: "On a certain day Aruhat Paramesvara (? made known to) Munibhadra (vondānondu-dinam Aruhat-Paramēśvaraṁ Munibhadra ......Siriyanna......chintaneyaṁ māḷpa) that he would grant the happy state to Śiriyaṇṇa, who was a perfect lay-disciple. At the favourable time, when the rain of flowers was falling, and with a noise like thunder the sounds of great drums were rolling, (ghana-rava-bhēri-dundubhi mahā-murajaṁ bahu-vādya-ghōṣadiṁ) singing songs to himself, the sādhu Śiriyaṇṇa swiftly clung to the feet of Jina, never to leave him, —how fortunate was he."²