Two pillars with Jain Tirthankara sculptures and inscriptions were discovered in Enikepalli village, Moinabad mandal in Rangareddy district, on the outskirts of Hyderabad. The discovery was made by archaeologist and heritage activist P Srinath Reddy, who informed Archaeologist N Siva Nagi Reddy. The pillars are made of granite and black basalt and are carved with four Jaina Tirthankaras – Adinatha, Neminatha, Parsvanatha, and Vardhamana Mahavira – seated in meditation on their four sides. They are also decorated with Keerthimukhas on the topside.
Nagi Reddy revealed that there were inscriptions in Telugu-Kannada script on both the slabs, but they 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). The details could be known only after the slabs are removed from the sluice and estampages taken, he holds.
According to Nagi Reddy, the Jaina Tirthankara slabs might have been brought from a local dilapidated Jain temple and fitted to the sluice some 100 years ago. 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 them from the sluice and erecting them on a pedestal under proper labelling with historical details.
