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Thc Followers of the Ever Growing One
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One last question comes to mind, that which concerns the Jaina presence in Kerala. The samgha did certainly exist in this region where in the northern part a few families still reside up to this day. From the few existing ruins of temples and from inscriptions we gather that Jainism penetrated into Kēraļa from Tamil Nādu - into the South to the district of Kanyākumāri and into the central area to Pālghāt and its surrounding countryside - and from Karnātaka into the North at a considerably later period. The traces which still exist in the district of Kozhikode date from the period between the IXth and XIth centuries. They consists in cave-temples of a later period than those found in Tamil Nādu; in ordinary temples and works of sculpture. It seems highly probably, however, that sanctuaries originally of Jaina origin may have belonged at a later age to other religious groupings.318 Moreover, we know that the author of the Cilappatikāram (early A.D.), Mlanko Atikal, a Jaina ascetic, was from the royal family of the Cēras, the rulers of present-day Kēraļa.319
318 Cf. Sarkar, 1975, pp. 215-221.
319 Cf. Nair, 1984, on the Jaina ascetics in Keraļa and on their impact on the local culture in the early centuries of the Christian era.
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