Note 6 — J

Other colossal statues of Gummata are situated on the summit of hills outside the towns of Karkal and Vēnūr or Yēnūr in South Canara. Concerning the former, Dr. E. Hultzsch writes as follows.6 “It is a monolith consisting of the figure itself, of a slab against which it leans, and which reaches up to the wrists, and of a round pedestal which is sunk into a thousand-petalled lotus flower. The legs and arms of the figure are entwined with vines (drâkshâ). On both sides of the feet, a number of snakes are cut out of the slab against which the image leans. Two inscriptions7 on the sides of the same slab state that this image of Bāhubalin or Gummata Jinapati was set up by a chief named Vîra-Pândya, the son of Bhairava, in A.D. 1431–32. An inscription of the same chief is engraved on a graceful stone pillar in front of the outer gateway. This pillar bears a seated figure of Brahmadêva, a chief of Pattipombuchcha, the modern Humcha in Mysore, who, like Vîra-Pândya, belonged to the family of Jinadatta, built the Chaturmukha basti in A.D. 1586–87. As its name (chaturmukha, the four-faced) implies, this temple has four doors, each of which opens on three black stone figures of the three Tīrthankaras Ari, Malli, and Munisuvrata. Each of the figures has a golden aureole over the head.” According to a legend recorded by Mr. M. J. Walhouse,8 the Karkal statue, when finished, was raised on to a train of twenty iron carts furnished with steel wheels, on each of which ten thousand propitiatory cocoanuts were broken and covered with an infinity of cotton. It was then drawn by legions of worshippers up an inclined plane to the platform on the hill-top where it now stands.