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44 THE JAINS IN THE TAMIL LAND.
that Kural represents not only what was best in South Indian culture but also it has given to the Tamils the quintessence of North Indian wisdom contained in such works as the Arthasāstra of Kautilya. No one, therefore, who had not a sound kuowledge of Prakrit and Sanskrit literature could have attempted the writing of
Kural and such a one was Kunda Kunda. If • this supposition is true, the inference is inevitcable that the Jains had penetrated into the extreme south of India so early #3, if not earlier than, the I century A.D. and that they had actively taken up the work of propagating their faith through the medium of the
vernacular of the country namely Tamil. The spread The first two centuries of the Christian era of Jainism in the early saw, therefore, the appearance in the Tamil coun
tries of a new religion which, with its simple moral code devoid of elaborate exegetics, appealed to the Dravidian and was destined to play an important part in the religious history of South India. Fostering the vernaculars of the country out of opposition to the Brahmins, the Jains infused Aryan thought and learning among the southern people, which had the effect of awakening Dravidian literature to proclaim the new message it had received from northern lands." A consideration of the literary history of India led Mr. Frazer to write “ It was through the fostering care of the Jains that the south seems
1 The Journal of the Roya! . Frazer, Literary History of Asiatic Society, Vol. XXII, p. 249. India, pp. 310 & 311.
centuries of the Christian era.
