Chapter outline and page reference:
Girinarayana 18
Giriraj 18
Urjayat and Ujjayanta 19
Gomanta 27
Raivataka, Raivata, Raivatagiri, Revatachal 29
Raivatari 39
Vastrapatha 39
Lingakara 44
Kanchana 44
Neminath Parvat 45
Girimunja 45
Girinayara 45
Pushpagiri 46
Highland of St. John 46
Girnal, Karnal and Killa-e-Girnar 46
Devagiri 47
Some Other Names Applied to Girnar 47
Chapter preview (first three pages only):
Figure 2. Recent postcard of Hindu pat painting of Mount Girnar tirth. The figures represented from right to left are Anasuya Mata, Narsinh Mehta and Gurudattatrey. The peaks with temples represented from right to left are Ambaji, Gorakh(nath) Tonk, Oghad Tonk, Gurudattatreya Tonk, Anasuya (Mata) Tonk, and Kalika Tonk.
Over its very long history, Mount Girnar has accumulated an extensive list of appellations. The name Girnar signifies ‘master of hills’. Gir denotes ‘a mountain’, but also ‘invoking or praising’, and ‘invocation, praise, song, speech, language, or voice’. Girnara is both ‘mountain-man’ and ‘invoking the eternal spirit’. Nara is ‘a man, a hero, or the gnomon of a sun-dial’, and nara is the primeval man or eternal spirit pervading the universe, always associated with narayana, the ‘son of man’.
Commonly used names for Mount Girnar include Urjayat, Ujjayanta, Gomanta, Raivataka, Vastrapatha, and Giriraj. In the Jain cosmic wheel of time (kalacakra) we are currently in a descending time cycle (avasarpini) which is sub-divided into six aras or epochs, and it is understood that Girnar has a different name during each. The first four names for Girnar were consecutively Kailashgiri, Svarnagiri, Raivatachal or Raivatgiri, and Ujjanta or Ujjayantagiri. In this present or fifth ara, the name Girnar is used, whereas in the next ara it will be called Nandapadragiri.
Girinarayana
The Mandalika-nrpa-carita (1460 AD), a Sanskrit mahakavya by the court poet Gangadhara, clearly refers to Girnar as Girinarayana (Velankar 1952), and White (1996, page 515) suggested that Girnar is a vernacularisation of the name Girinarayana.
Girinarayan is both ‘man-mountain’, and ‘god mountain’ or ‘god mountain that men go to’. Thus Girnara is ‘mountain-man’, and Girnari (‘mountain-woman’) is Amba (‘mother’). At the foot of Girinara is Girinagar (‘mountain-city’) or Junagadh (‘the old boundary’). The name Girnar as ‘mountain-man’ or mountain-god’ could be seen as a nicely appropriate name when the western end of the central ridge is seen from the north-west, since at this angle the mountain takes on the very clear appearance of a man’s (or god’s) face looking upwards (see front cover). Girnar is therefore a most suitable name for this mountain, although Sankalia (1949, page 51) failed to see it, and he suggested that ‘Girnar is certainly a misfit’, as he maybe too hastily believed that the name Girnar was only derived from the name of the town at the base of the mountain, i.e. Girinagara.
Giriraj
A name commonly used for Mount Girnar is Giri-raj or Gir-raj, implying ‘king of hills’. Watson (1884, page 441) noted that an ancient name for Girnar was ‘Girvar’, and Mitra (2005, page 11) suggested that this designation signifies ‘king of the hills’. Burgess (1876, page 131) noted that the Harivamsa refers to Girivara, which he assumed was Girnar, as a fortress in Saurashtra: ‘…Anartta is spoken of as part at least of Surashtra, ‘bounded on one side by the sea and on the other by Anupa, with Girivara (Girnar I suppose) for its fortress’.’ The name Girivara implies ‘best mountain’, ‘great mountain’ or ‘mountain enclosure’. Hindu sadhus at Girnar generally understand Mount Girnar as Giriraj, and they treat as a matter-of-fact that the ‘face’ seen in profile of the central ridge (see front cover), is a physical representation of this Giriraj.
Urjayat and Ujjayanta
Pradhan (1930a) suggested that the Rgveda refers to an impregnable or unbesieged citadel or castle of Urjayanti, which is equivalent to Ujjayanta, in connection with a great battle between Sambara and Divodasa. He continued to reason that the Ramayana refers to the same battle, which took place at Vaijayanta, which is very likely a further reference to Ujjayanta. Pradhan (1930a) continued by stating that: ‘Urjayanti of the Rgveda = Ujjayanta of the Mahabharata and Prabandhacintamani = Vaijayanta of the Ramayana = Urjayant of the inscriptions of Skandagupta and Rudradaman = Girinagara of the Prabandhacintamani and the Rudradaman inscription = Girnar, establishes it that the great Rgvedic battle was fought near the ancient castle Uparkot of Junagad, which was besieged and stormed, and then again about the ancient fort on the hill Girnar or Ujjayanta where Sambara probably retreated’ (see Chapter 19, below). If it was used for Mount Girnar in the Rgveda, the name Urjayat may have become sanctified, and therefore it may not be surprising that the Jains still use the designation Urjayat when referring to Mount Girnar.
According to Dhaky and Moorti (2001, page 5): ‘Ujjayantagiri (Gimar Hills) near Girinagara, from the Ksatrapa times onward, had come to be regarded as very sacred because of the creation of a legend involving the 22nd tirthankara, Jina Aristanemi of the Yadava cIan (and supposed in the Nirgrantha tradition to be a cousin of Vasudeva Sri Krsna and his stepbrother Balarama since a member of the collateral branch of the Yadava clan), who is recorded in the agamas of the late Ksatrapa period as renouncing the worldly ways, attaining omniscience, and finally the salvation, all of these three auspicious events (Kalyana-traya) are noted there to have happened on this mountain’.
The name Urjayat (= strong, powerful, eminent) for Girnar is found on both the Junagadh Rock Inscriptions of Rudradaman (about 150 AD) and Skandagupta (457 AD) (Law 1976). According to Dhaky (1980): ‘The original, as perhaps the most ancient, name of the Girnar hills was ‘Urjayatgiri’, literally “high hill”…The hills’ nomen variated as ‘Urjayanta’ in early and medieval Digambara Jaina Sanskrit literature and is perhaps also met with at least in one mid-twelfth century Jaina inscription on the hills. A Prakrtised form of the latter, namely ‘Ujjayanta’, frequently figures in Brahmanical and non-canonical Svetambara Jaina Sanskrit literature as well as inscriptions, with or without the suffix ‘giri’.
In the Svetambara canonical works (Prakrta), the mountain has been called ‘Ujjamta’, ‘Ujjimta’, or ‘Ujjemta’, and in the late Apabhramsa, ‘Ujjila’.’ According to Mehta and Chandra (1970, pages 112–113), the following names referring to Ujjayanta are recorded from a variety of Svetambar Jain texts. In Haribhadra’s Avasyaka-vrtti (page 709), the name Ujjamta is used for