– Article by Nitin H P
The headless ruined Adinath idol at Aisoor/Aisuru a remote village in Siddapur taluk of Uttara Kannada (Karwar) district of Karnataka is called as Runda Bhyrava by the locals.
Based on the information received from some locals at Bilgi about existence of Jain antiques we started our journey towards Aisoor. We were not very sure about the existence of any such antiques, at the same time we were not willing to skip out visit to this place as we hadn’t heard about this place before and were curious to explore a new place. On reaching Aisoor and enquiring with a couple of people we learnt that there existed something related to Jainism in the middle of thick forests behind Sri Veerabadhreshwara and Gowri Shankar temple of this village.
Headless Tirthankara idol – On exploring further we found a 5 feet high Jain inscription without any letters engraved on it. This further enthused us to explore more on this. On moving further ahead we were aghast to see a 3 feet high ruined headless idol of Lord Adinath in Kayotsarga (standing) posture in the midst of thick forest.
Indifferent Disturbing Names – On coming back and enquiring about the idol we were further disturbed to learn about the indifferent names they called the idol with. Mr.K.M.Nayak from Aisoor a practicing lawyer at Siddapura, said that they call this idol as ‘Runda Bhyrava‘ as this idol does not have its ‘Runda’ i.e. head or ‘Munda Bhutappa‘ as it has only the ‘Munda’ i.e. the body. On questioning about the history of the idol and reason for this state of the idol he said that the idol might belong to the period of Bilgi rulers and said that the Jain’s deserted this place over a period of time and opined that the idol might have been ruined by some miscreants. He further opined that there might be some ruins of a Jain temple in the midst of forests.
It is really disheartening to note about the indifferent disturbing names used for this Tirthankara idol. The use of the terms ‘Bhyrava’ suggest the violenent approach to the name, further the term ‘Bhutappa’ (a demon) is a concept that is non existent in Jainism.
The idols Worship – According to locals they worship the idols only twice a year, once during the first full moon day after the Deepawali and once during the month of Kartika.
The sorry state of affairs of this idol is an indication that Jainism will deteriorate over a period of time if the temples and idols are not looked after properly by the Jain community.
(The WWW.JAINHERITAGECENTRES.COM team members that were involved in the field visit to this site on December 28, 2013 – M.Lokaraj Jain & Nitin H P)
Coordinates: 14°19’50″N 74° 43’7″E
Short URL to the map – http://goo.gl/maps/XXK7S
Disclaimer: We do not intend to hurt the feelings of our fellow Jains through the stories of ruined Jain idols and temples. However, with an intent to bring about awareness among the masses we have published this article.