Page:Castes and Tribes of Southern India, Volume 4.djvu/282

LINGAYAT importance in this connection. It is dated about A.D. 1200, and mentions the Western Chalukya king Somesvara IV, and his predecessor the Kalachurya prince Bijjala. It narrates the doings of a certain Ekāntada Rāmayya, so called because he was an ardent and exclusive worshipper of Siva. This individual got into controversy with the Jains, who were apparently very powerful at Ablūr, and the latter agreed to destroy their Jina and to set up Siva instead, if Rāmayya would cut off his own head before his god, and have it restored to his body after seven days without a scar. Rāmayya appears to have won his wager, but the Jains refused to perform their part of the contract. The dispute was then referred to king Bijjala, himself a Jain, and Rāmayya was given a jayapatra, or certificate of success. This king and his Chalukyan successor also presented Rāmayya with lands in support of certain Siva temples. It is noteworthy that the story is told also in the Channabasava Purāna, but the controversy is narrated as having occurred at Kalyān, where Rāmayya had gone to see king Bijjala. The same passage makes Rāmayya quote an instance of a previous saint, Mahālāka, having performed the same feat at a village named Jambar, which may conceivably be the Ablūr of the inscription. But the interest and importance of the inscription centre in the fact that it discloses the name of another devout and exclusive worshipper of Siva, who, it is said, caused this man to be born into the world with the express object of "putting a stop to the hostile observances of the Jains and the Buddhists who had become furious" or aggressive. Dr. Fleet considers that, making allowance for the supernatural agency introduced into the story, the narrative is reasonable and plain, and has the ring of truth in it; and, in his opinion, it shows us the real person to whom the