Bedra (Moodabidri): the Jaina Kashi of the south

Bedra (Moodabidri) is counted in eighteens: eighteen basadis, eighteen temples, eighteen lakes and eighteen roads ¹. The town is in Dakshina Kannada, about 34 kilometres north-east of Kudla (Mangaluru) ¹. It is a taluk of its own ^{1 2}.

The Jaina Kashi

People call the town the Jaina Kashi of the south, after Kashi (Varanasi) ^{1 3}. It has eighteen Jain temples, called basadis ^{3 4}. It is also called the Shikshana Kashi, the Kashi of education, for its schools and colleges ¹.

Jain patronage here is old. An inscription at Moodabidri records that the Alupa king Kulashekhara Alupendra ruled Tulu Nadu from a throne inside a basadi ⁵. An inscription of 1444 by the last Alupa king, Kulasekharadeva Alupendradeva, was also found in a basadi here ⁵. Between the fourteenth and sixteenth centuries the town grew into a centre of Jain religion, art and building ¹.

About 1603 the Chowtas, a Jain ruling family, moved their capital to Moodabidri ^{6 1}. Before that they ruled from Puttige, about five kilometres away ¹. The Wikipedia article on the Chowtas calls them a family “of Jain Bunt origin” ⁶. The throne passed by aliyasantana, inheritance through the mother’s line, the custom Bunt families also follow ⁶.

How the Chowtas lost their power is told two ways. One account says they lost it when Tipu Sultan took the region ¹. On this account they kept up symbolic rituals after the British defeated Tipu ¹. Another account says Hyder Ali and Tipu Sultan invaded, and the Chowtas signed treaties with them ⁶. They had to give up most of their territory ⁶. Chandrasekhara Chikkaraya Chowta V, who reigned from 1783 to 1822, was the last Chowta king with some authority ⁶. After the British took South Canara, the family lost all its power and was left a small pension ⁶.

The last coronation at Moodabidri took place in 1865. It is recorded in a pattavali, a chronicle of succession ¹. The family’s descendants still live in the Chowtara Aramane, the Chowta palace ⁶. It is known for its carved wooden pillars and ceilings, and for the Nava Nari Kunjara, an elephant made up of nine women ⁶.

The name

Most people in the town call it Bedra (ಬೆದ್ರ) ². It is also written Mudbidri ¹ and Moodubidire ². The name means the eastern bamboo place. Mūḍu means east, and bidiru means bamboo ¹. Bamboo grew widely here in the old days ¹. Older names for the town were Mooduvenupura and Bidirepura ².

The name is half of a pair. Padubidri, on the coast in Udupi district, is the western Bedra ⁷.

The Saavira Kambada Basadi

The Saavira Kambada Basadi (ಸಾವಿರ ಕಂಬದ ಬಸದಿ), the thousand-pillar temple, is counted the finest of the town’s basadis ³. Its formal name is Tribhuvana Tilaka Chudamani, and it is also called the Chandranatha temple ³. The local chieftain Devaraya Wodeyar began it in 1430, and it took thirty-one years to finish ³. Another account says the work was completed on 29 September 1430 ⁴. Its main image is the Tirthankara Chandraprabha. The image is eight feet tall and cast in five metals ^{3 4}.

It is a large granite temple of three storeys ¹. The lowest storey is stone, and the top two are carved in wood ³. No two of its pillars are alike ³. One count gives 1,008 pillars ⁴. The roofs of its verandahs slope. They are made of wood covered with copper tiles, like temples in Nepal ³. Its seven mandapas, pillared halls, are carved in the Vijayanagara style ³. Some pillars carry carvings of dragons and giraffes. These are linked to trade with China in the fifteenth century ³. The rulers, the Jain bhattaraka, merchants and ordinary people all supported the building ¹.

In front of it stands the manastambha, a pillar cut from a single stone, about fifteen metres (fifty feet) tall ^{3 1}. Queen Nagala Devi, of the Bhairava family of Karkala, raised it ³. The tombs of Jain monks stand near the temple ³. The Jain Matha runs the temple ³.

The eighteen basadis, and the Matha

The oldest of them is the Guru Basadi, also called Hale Basadi and Siddhanta Basadi. It is said to date from 714 ^{3 4}. It is built of stone, and its outer surface is covered in copper ⁴. Its main image is Parshvanatha, in black stone, about 3.5 metres tall ^{3 1}. He is shown in kayotsarga, standing in meditation ⁴.

The others include the Koti, Leppada, Kallu, Badaga and Padu basadis ^{3 4}. There are also the Vikrama Setty, Deramma Setty, Chola Setty and Mahadeva Setty basadis ³. Most of the eighteen stand near the Jain Matha ⁴.

The Jain Matha is headed by a bhattaraka (ಭಟ್ಟಾರಕ) of the Mula Sangh order ¹. The bhattaraka is the chief pontiff of the town’s Jains ⁴. Each bhattaraka of Moodabidri takes the name Charukeerthi ³. The seat looks after the eighteen basadis of the town and other temples around it ³.

The Dhavala manuscripts

The Guru Basadi has the palm-leaf manuscripts called the Dhavala texts ^{3 1}. Another account places them in the Jain Matha ¹. They hold three long commentaries: the Dhavala, the Jayadhavala and the Mahadhavala ⁸. The Dhavala and the Mahadhavala explain the Shatkhandagama, the “scripture in six parts”. Wikipedia calls it the only canonical text of the Digambara Jains, but the same article also names the Kasayapahuda as a second one ⁸. The Jayadhavala explains the Kasayapahuda ⁸. Acharya Virasena wrote the Dhavala and began the Jayadhavala ⁸. After his death his disciple Jinasena finished the Jayadhavala, in 838, under the Rashtrakuta king Amoghavarsha ⁸. Some scholars name the king as Jagatunga instead ⁸.

The manuscripts were first kept at the Siddhanta Basadi in Shravanabelagola, and later moved to Moodabidri ⁸. One account says they were brought here during the Mughal invasions ³. Their age is told two ways. One account says the palm-leaf copy was written in Rashtrakuta times ⁸. Others call the Moodabidri manuscripts twelfth-century ^{3 1}.

At Moodabidri the manuscripts were held in great reverence and worshipped ⁸. They were not open to scholars from outside ⁸. Ordinary householders were not allowed to study them ⁸. Between 1896 and 1920 the Moodabidri manuscripts were copied out in modern Nagari and Kannada scripts ⁸. Manikchand of Sholapur supported the copying, and the temple trustees did not know of it ⁸. Hiralal Jain, with A.N. Upadhye and a team of scholars, edited the texts and published them with a Hindi translation ⁸. A donation from Seth Sitabray Gulabray paid for the work ⁸. Monks and traditional lay followers, the shravakas, strongly opposed the printing ⁸. They held that printing a scripture would harm its purity ⁸.

The town’s people

Tulu, Kannada, Beary, Urdu and Konkani are all spoken in the town ¹. Christian families have about fourteen churches in and around Moodabidri ¹. One of them, the Holy Cross Church at Hosabettu (Hospet), was built by the Portuguese in the sixteenth century ¹. Muslim families hold the yearly uroos, a saint’s festival, at the town’s dargahs ¹. Gaud Saraswat Brahmin (GSB) families keep a five-day lamp festival, Dindu ¹. It runs from Utthana Dwadashi to the full moon of Kartika ¹.

Tulu-speaking Jains have a dialect of their own. Where other Tulu speakers begin a word with t- or s-, they say h- ⁹. So tare (ತರೆ), head, becomes hare (ಹರೆ), and sādi (ಸಾದಿ), path, becomes hādi (ಹಾದಿ) ⁹.

The town’s year

Bhuta Kola is kept here, and most temples hold one at their yearly festival ¹. Yakshagana plays run through the night, from about half past nine to six in the morning ¹. Moodabidri is known for its hulivesha, the tiger dance, at Ganesha Chaturthi ¹.

Kambala, the buffalo race in flooded paddy fields, is held here too ¹. In 2009 the Koti-Chennaya Jodukere Kambala at Ontikatte was held for the seventh year ¹⁰. It opened with prayers by the priest of the Alangar Mahalingeshwara temple, the priest of the Alangar church and E. M. Shaffi Sab of Puttige ¹⁰. A member of the Moodabidri Chowta family presided ¹⁰.

What to see

The Saavira Kambada Basadi, its manastambha, and the tombs of Jain monks beside it ³. The Guru Basadi and the Jain Matha ^{3 4}. The Chowta palace, with its carved ceilings ¹. The smaller basadis around the Matha ⁴. And the lakes the town is counted by ¹.

Terms used on this page

• basadi: a Jain temple
• bhattaraka: the head of the Jain Matha
• aliyasantana: inheritance through the mother’s line
• digambara: the Jain tradition whose scripture the Dhavala texts explain

Related

• Karla (Karkala): the town of black stone
• Tulu Nadu: the land, its districts and its towns

Sources

Share on WhatsApp Share by email

Seen a mistake, or does your village tell it differently? Write to us about this page.

Last reviewed by tulunadu.org on 2 November 2026.