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66
NAYANARS AND ALVARS.
and
Appar and Jainism,
And thus they must have flourished in the first half of the seventh century A.D. which is the period of the decline and downfall of Jainism in Southern India.
In this bly task of Hindu revival in the south, there was associated with Sambandar another great saint Tirunāvukkarasar, an elder contemporary of Sambandar. If Sambandar brought about the downfall of: Jainism in the Pandyan Kingdom, Appar drove the Jains out of the Pallava country. Apparel was born of Vellāla parents at Tiruvāmur in the South Arcot District. He had an elder sister, Tilakāvati by name. She was betrothed eto Kallppakai who, however, died in the war between the Pallava king, Paramēswara Varma, and the Chalukyas (660 A.D.). After the death of her husband, she devoted her life to the service of Siva, while her brother Appar became a Jain and spent his life in the Jain cloisters at. Tiruppāpuliyur under the name of Dharmasēna. In his later years, as a result of the prayers of his sister, he became a convert to the Saiva faith and with all the zeal of a new convert, he began to persecute the Jains in the Pallava country. He is also credited with having converted to Saivism the Pallava king, Mahēndra Varman, son of Narasimha Varman I, from Jainism.. Most of his hymns are of an autobiographical nature and from them we learn that he repented his past company &nd association with the Digambara
1 See note 2, p. 154.
