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materials for
CHAPTER III.
THE JAINS IN THE TAMIL LAND. Paucity of. It is impossible to fix with any tolerable Jain History, certainty the date of the introduction of the
Jain faith into the Tamil land. Few records exist to cnable us to write any consistent account of the Jains in the extreme south of India. The Rājāvalikathe, references to which have been made in the foregoing pages and the trustworthiness of which has been in more than one instance illustrated, mentions that Visākhamuni, in the course of his wanderings in the Chola and the Pandya countries, worshipped in the Jain Chaitālyas and preached to the Jains settled in those places. This would show that the Jains had already colonised the extreme south even before the death of Bhadrabāhu, i.e., before 297 B.C. The matter rests, however, on the solitary evidence of Rājāvalikathe, and there is no other trustworthy record to show that the Jains 'had
migrated to these places at this early period. Evidence It is common for writers of South Indian Mahāvamsa. History to derive inforniation, in order to find
support for their statertients, from Mahāvamsa. It is well known that Mahāvamsa was composed by Monk Mahānāma, a “great literary artist, during the reign of Dhantusēna, a king of Ceylon (461-479 A.D.). Written in Pāli verse, it covers the period, 543 B.C.--301 A.D. Its value as containing authentic materials for a true history
from
