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JAINISM
13
so he is regarded as belonging to the Jaina faith.
The same is true of the Kanarese literature; and it is said that from the first century of the Christian Era to the twelfth, the whole literature of Kanara' is dominated by the Jainas. So great were they in those days.
Then there came a great movement throughout Southern India, in which the followers of Mahadeva, Siva, came preaching and singing through the country, appealing to that deep emotion of the human heart, Bhakti, which the Jaina had too much ignored. Singing stotras to Mahadeva they came, chanting His praises, especially working cures of diseases in His name, and before these wonderful cures and the rush of the devotion which was aroused by their singing and preaching, many of the Jainas were themselves converted; the remainder of them were driven away, so that in Southern India they became practically non-existent. Such is their story in the South; such the fashion of their vanishing.
Now called Karnataka
