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OURSELVES
It will make a fairly big volume to give a history of all that the Jainas have contributed to the treasure of Indian literature. When Albrecht Weber wrote his famous lectures on the History of Indian Literature (1876) he only referred in a note to the Jaina caritras and their importance for the history of India, with a passing reference to the Satrunjaya Māhātmya. He mentioned in a note the atomistic theory of the Jaina philosophers as found in the Bhagavati Sutra. Besides these notes, he devoted a whole page to the sacred books of the Jainas and in a long note he pointed out the importance of the Jaina contribution to Sanskrit literature, especially in grammar and lexicography. R. W. Frazer in his Literary History of India (1898) has well pointed out the great influence the Jainas have exercised on the Dravidian literature of the South. "It was through the fostering care of the Jainas that the South first seems to have been inspired with new ideals, and its literature enriched with new forms of expression."
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