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THE ASCENDENCY AND ECLIPSE OF BHAGAVĀN
MAHAVIRA'S CULT IN THE TAMIL LAND
K. A. Nilakanta Šāstri
and V. Rāmasubramaniam 'Aundy' I. Some Postulates and Definitions 1. “The doctrine of spontaneous generation of culture is, we are coming to see, false and misleading." says W. J. Perry in his book, Growth of Civilization. [Page 2, Methuen & Co., London). “Far from spontaneous development having taken place in all parts of the earth, all that is known of the growth and spread of culture goes to show that most communities in any part of the world that have advanced beyond the food-gathering stage of culture and practise any of the fundamental arts and crafts, owe their cultural capital to some other community.”
2. Mr. Adris Bannerji enunciates another postulate. “The role of history is not merely to state the factual evidence of certain events, but also to explain not only why it happened but why something totally different did not happen." [Origin of Jain Practices, J. O. I., Baroda)
3. We endorse both the postulates and believe, accordingly, that the ascendency of Bhagavān Mahāvīra's cult and its subsequent eclipse in the Tamil Land, were not accidents but results of a chain of events that had preceded them.
4. The ancient followers of the cult of the Bhagavan, who now go by the name fainas, were known to the Tamilians of the pre-Christian epoch as Nikkantas (Skt. Nirgrantha) and 'samanas' (Skt. śramana). Nirgrantha, signifying ‘unfettered in Sanskrit, is commonly believed to have been first applied exclusively to the
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