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THE HOYSALAS
Garuḍavāhana-Bhaṭṭa and the Dhanvantari shrine at Śrīraṅgam.
The village may be identified with Mummuḍiśōla-maṅgalam in the Lalgudi taluk of
the Trichinopoly distrcit. The recipient of the gift was a certain Garuḍavāhana-Bhaṭṭa who is described as the rakshaka of the Hoysaḷa general and who appears
to have been conducting a śāla even from earlier times. In another inscription
(No. 81) engraved on a different slab near this dated in Śaka 1415 (= A. D. 1493), it
is mentioned that this ārōgyaśālā suffered damage during the vāṇam (Muhammadan
raid), and that a descendant of this Garuḍavāhana, called Śrīnivāsa and also surnamed Garuḍavāhana, repaired this hospital and installed an image of Dhanvantri-
Emberumān in it. This rare image of
Dhanvantri is still in existence in a shrine
in the fourth prākāra of the temple.
A mutilated image of Dhanvantari kept in the gōpura at Chidambaram has been
noticed in Ep. Rep. for 1935-36, page 94. The earlier Garuḍavāhana is stated
to have composed a prabandham called Raṅgaghōshaṇai, which is not extant now.
The Garuḍavāhana figuring in the record of Śaka 1415 may be identified with
the author of the Divyasūricharitam, a hagiological kāvya in Sanskrit narrating the
lives of the Vaishṇava Ālvārs and Ācharyas.
A Brahman merchant belonging to the foreign (paradēśi) Sāvāsi-vyāpāri
community called Sākala-Bhaṭṭa, son of Āhala-Bhaṭṭa of the Sākala-gōtra, figures
in No. 70 dated in the 8th year of Rāmanātha as the donor of a flower-garden to
god Raṅganātha. The Sāvāsis are mentioned in inscriptions of the Bombay
Karnātak as having migrated from Kāśmīra, but they do not figure there as
merchants.
Two Saiva teachers of his time.
50. As the Hoysaḷa kings generally patronized the Śaiva cult, several Śaiva maṭha came into existence during their period. One such maṭha existing at Jambukēśvaram is known from No. 125, a record
of the 2nd year of Vīra-Rāmanāthadēva
which states that Gautamaśiva-Rāvaḷar, a disciple’s disciple (praśishya) of the
great Śaiva teacher Svāmidēva, is said to have purchased a site for building a
maṭha at Jambukēśvaram. This Svāmidēva is probably identical with the teacher
of the same name figuring in the Ārpākkam record of the 12th year of the
reign of Rājādhirāja II (No. 20 of 1899). Another Śaiva guru named Tatpurushaśiva of the Lakshādhyāya-santana is mentioned in another Hoysaḷa record in this
temple (No. 1 of 1891).
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