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82 JAINS AND TAMIL LITERATURE.
of the Brahmins who were brought in by kings and chiefs for the purpose of ministering to the spiritual needs of the people, Tamil poetry came to be largely panegyric in nature. But the Jains and the Buddhists who entered the Tamil land in large and ever-increasing numbers disliked the military habits and the hunting pursuits of the Tamils, as being contrary to the spirit of their religions which proclaimed, above all else, the message of Ahimsa. Their simple life, their intense piety, and the zeal with which they propagated their faith, soon won for them royal patronage and court favour. These they were not slow to take advantage of. Well versed in Sanskrit and Prakrit literature, they imposed their ideals, their expressions and forms of life on the literature of the early Tamils. This largely accounts for the didactic nature of early Sangam literature. Yet, as Mr. M. Srinivasa Ayyangar remarks :“ In every department of Tamil literature, we can still perceive a slender veil of Dravidian thought runring
through. Its groundwork is purely non-Aryan The Augustan and its superstructure necessarily Aryan.” This age of Tamil literature.
period in which Aryan thought and learning gained mastery over native sentiments and literature, and in which the second and third Academies are said to have flourished in the city of Madura, is sometimes called the Augustan age of Tamil literature,
It is a maiter for fruitful speculation to inquire what would have been the trend of Tamil
