Nattal Sahu (नट्टल साहु) of Yoginipur (now

Mehrauli Mehrauli is a neighbourhood in South Delhi, a district of Delhi in India. It represents a constituency in the legislative assembly of Delhi. The area is close to Gurgaon and next to Vasant Kunj. History Mehrauli is one of the seven medieva ...

Delhi Delhi, officially the National Capital Territory (NCT) of Delhi, is a city and a union territory of India containing New Delhi, the capital of India. Straddling the Yamuna river, primarily its western or right bank, Delhi shares borders w ...

) is the earliest known

Agrawal Jain Agrawals are the descendent of Maharaja Agrasen who was a legendary Indian king of Agroha, a city of traders. He is the descendant of Kush, son of lord Ram and he was born in 35th generation after lord Ram. He is credited with the establishment ...

merchant-prince, who lived during the reign Tomara king, ''Anangapal''. His life's account is described in Apabhramsha text ''Pasanaha Cariu'' (

Parshvanath ''Parshvanatha'' (), also known as ''Parshva'' () and ''Parasnath'', was the 23rd of 24 ''Tirthankaras'' (supreme preacher of dharma) of Jainism. He is the only Tirthankara who gained the title of ''Kalīkālkalpataru ( Kalpavriksha in this "Ka ...

Caritra) of poet

Vibudh Shridhar {{cleanup lang, article, date=November 2021 Vibudh Shridhar or Vibudha Shridhara (विबुध श्रीधर) (wrote during Vikram Samvat 1189-1230) was an accomplished Apabhramsha writer and poet in North India. He is the first known Agra ...

, written in Vikrama

Samvat The Hindu calendar, Panchanga () or Panjika is one of various lunisolar calendars that are traditionally used in the Indian subcontinent and Southeast Asia, with further regional variations for social and Hindu religious purposes. They adopt a s ...

1189 (1132 CE).Paramananda Jain Shastri, Agrawalon ka Jain Samskrti mein Yogadan, Anekanta Oct. 1966, p. 277-281 Nattal's father was Sahu Joja. He had two older brothers Raghav and Sodhal. Nattal was the chief of the

Jains Jainism ( ), also known as Jain Dharma, is an Indian religion. Jainism traces its spiritual ideas and history through the succession of twenty-four tirthankaras (supreme preachers of ''Dharma''), with the first in the current time cycle being ...

. He controlled a commercial empire spread through Anga, Vanga (Bengal), Kalinga (Odisha), Karnataka, Nepal, Bhot (Tibet), Panchal, Chedi, Gauda, Thakka (Punjab), Kerala, Marahatta (Maharashtra), Bhadanaka (Bayana), Magadh, Gurjar, Sorath (Saurashtra) and

Haryana Haryana (; ) is an Indian state located in the northern part of the country. It was carved out of the former state of East Punjab on 1 Nov 1966 on a linguistic basis. It is ranked 21st in terms of area, with less than 1.4% () of India's land ar ...

. He was also a minister in the court of Tomar Anangapala. Poet

, who was also an

, had migrated from

to Delhi. Nattala, as a patron, urged him to write the Pasanaha Cariu. Shridhara finished the composition in Vikrama Samvat 1189 (1132 CE), and thus became the first known Jain author. He describes his patron thus:The Pasnahacariu of Sridhar, An Introduction, Edition and Translation of the Forty Four Sandhis, Richard Cohen, PhD Dissertation, University of Pennsyslvania, 1979 सिरि अयरवाल कुल कमल मित्तु,
सुधम्म कम्म पवियण्य-वित्तु siri ayaravaala kula kamala mittu, sudhamma kamma paviyaNya-vittu Nattala Sahu had built a beautiful temple of Lord Adinath. He had the idol installed with an elaborate ceremony: जैनं चैत्यमकारि सुन्दरतरं जैनीं प्रतिष्ठां तथा,
स श्रीमान्विदितः सदैव जयतात्पृथ्वीतले नट्टलः, , jainaM chaityamakaari sundarataraM jainii.n pratishhThaa.n tathaa,
sa shreemaanviditaH sadaiv jayataatpR^ithviitale naTTalaH, , It is believed that fragments of this temple were used for the Quwwat-al-Islam mosque near

Qutab Minar Qutab (, Tat: ''gitob'') is an Azerbaijani dish made from thinly rolled dough that is cooked briefly on a convex griddle known as a saj. Composition When the weather gets warmer, the number of dishes made from wild plants increases. Qutab belon ...

References

{{Jainism Topics Indian merchants Hindi-language literature Businesspeople from Delhi Mehrauli Year of birth unknown Year of death unknown 12th-century Indian Jains

See also

References