Hyderabad: Millennium-old Jaina sculptures found fitted to a sluice

Hyderabad: Two square pillars carved with Jain Tirthankara sculptures and inscriptions were found in utter neglect on the outskirts of Hyderabad city at Enikepalli village, Moinabad mandal in Rangareddy district.

Based on the information given by P Srinath Reddy, a young archaeologist and heritage activist, Archaeologist N Siva Nagi Reddy inspected the spot and revealed that two pillars, one granite and another black basalt are carved with four Jaina Tirthankaras, namely, Adinatha, Neminatha, Parsvanatha and Vardhamana Mahavira seated in meditation on their four sides and decorated with Keerthimukhas on the topside.

Nagi Reddy adds that there were inscriptions in Telugu-Kannada script on both the slabs which could not be deciphered as they are fitted in the masonry walls of the sluice of the village tank. The visible part of an inscription refers to a Janina Basadi (monastery) located close to Chilukuru, a prominent Jaina centre during the Rastrakuta and Vemulawada Chalukyan times (9th-10th centuries CE) and the details could be known only after the slabs are removed from the sluice and estampages taken he holds.

The Jaina Tirthankara slabs might have been brought from a local dilapidated Jain temple and fitted to the sluice some 100 years ago, he said. In view of the archaeological importance of the Jaina sculptural pillars and inscriptions, Siva Nagi Reddy made an appeal to the villagers to protect them for posterity by removing from the sluice and erecting on pedastal under proper labelling with historical details.