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Some vestiges of Jainism among the ancient Tamils
About the same time Buddhadatta, an elder contemporary of Buddhaghosa, wrote works on Buddhism in the Chola country. One of these works was the Vinaya vinichchaya which was composed in honour of Buddhasimha at Bhutamangala (Budalur) in the interior of the Chola country. The great Jivaka Chintamani which is, according to Dr. G. U. Pope, "the greatest existing Tamil literary monument, is by a Jaina poet, Tiruttakka Devar, contains the life of the hero, Jivakan, the King of Rajamapuram, the capital of Yemangadam (golden-limbed a name of Gandharva). The author has worked out diffusely in his epic the ideas that have been embodied in the famous Anthology of Naladiyar, in terse epigram. Dr. Pope is of the opinion that some of the earlier quartrains of the Anthology were not improbably his; and that "there is scarcely a word, phrase or idea in the four hundred quartrains that is not in the epic."
The Naladiyar (translated into English and edited with critical apparatus by Dr. G. U. Pope:-Oxford, 1893) was, according to tradition, a collection of popular verses, made after the impalement of the Jainas in the time of Kun Pandyan, of the seventh century who came under the influence of the Saiva saint, Gnana Sambandar. The verses were, mainly, but not exclusively, of Jaina origin and were largely expurgated by the Saivas. There is no mention of God in the collection, nor any trace of any particular religion; but there are allusions to certain popular deities and rites, while the idea of Karma is well discussed.
The famous Kural of Tiruvalluvar is ascribed to dates ranging from the 2nd century B. C. to the sixth century A. D. It is certainly earlier than the Epic of the Anklet in which it is quoted and was probably written a century or two before the main epics. Almost every religion of the land has claimed Tiruvalluvar for itself. Several writers have held that the great Tamil sage was a Jaina, a follower of Arhat and have brought forward pieces of internal evidence in favour of the Jaina origin of the work-chief among them being the use of the expressions: Malarmisai veginan ( he who walked on the lotus, descriptive of the Tirthankar going on a lotus to preach his doctrines on attaining omniscience) and Engunatthan ( he who has
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[Shree Atmaramji
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