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INTRODUCTION
Apart from their distinctive Ahimsa doctrine in the field of religious thought and practice, the most lasting contributions of the Jainas to the wealth of our national heritage lie in the fields of literature and art and architecture. In particular, the role which Jaina scholars, poets and authors have played in enriching Prakrit and Sanskrit literature and grammar at the all-India level and as pioneers in the growth of Tamil and Kannada literature and grammar as far as South India is concerned is, it may be safely asserted, varied and, from a practical stand-point, highly utilitarian. Though the early literature of the Jainas is in Prākrit, in the different linguistic regions to which their missionary zeal had taken them in the distant past, they unhesitatingly adopted, as the media of their doctrinal preachings and instructions and their prolific writings, the different local dialects and languages which were being spoken in those regions. Thereby Jaina scholars have been able to make, through successive centuries and in a phenomenal measure, pioneering and lasting contributions to the growth of the various branches of literature in such regional languages as Rajasthānī, Hindi and Gujarati in the north and Kannada and Tamil in the south.
The present work by Prof. A. Chakravarti being a learned introduction to Tamil works written by Jaina authors, treating of their kavyas and mahākāvyas, purāṇas and didactic and devotional poems, lyrics, tales, romances and allegories, their works on logic,
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