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JAINISM IN SOUTH INDIA (THE EARLY PHASE)
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Mahāvamsa, 16 according to which, during the reign of the Sri Lankan king Vattagāmaņi (29–17 BC), the Nirgrantha monastery of Anurādhapura was completely destroyed. It shows that Jainism, which was introduced into Sri Lanka in pre-Mauryan times, continued its existence there for roughly 300 years before yielding its ground to Buddhism.
The celebrated Kural,17 another Sangam work, is strongly claimed by the Jainas to be a collection of the verses composed by ancient Jaina sages of the Tamil country. That this work was in existence before the Tamil epics is evident from the fact that the Manimekalai, a poem written just before the Silappadikāram, quotes a verse from it. It is a work principally based on the concept of ahimsā.18 We must remember that the Jaina commentator of the Nīlakesi, freely quotes from the Kural and whenever he quotes, he introduces his quotation with the words 'as is mentioned in our scripture'. From this, it is clear, that the commentator considered this work to be an important Jaina scripture in Tamil.19 Besides, we have the evidence of the Tamil Prabodhacandrodaya where the Jaina ascetic recites a verse from the Kural which praises ahimsā.20 This shows that even to the nonJaina author of the Tamil Prabodhacandrodaya, the Kural was a Jaina poem. Competent scholars like Kanakasabhai?) and Chakravarti22 also believe this poem to be a product of the Jaina imagination. It should however be remembered that the teaching of the Kural appealed to all sects, as it was based on some fundamental ethical principles. Since the Manimekalai quotes a verse from it, we can tentatively place the Kural in the first century AD, if not earlier.
The most important Sangam work from the Jaina point of view is undoubtedly the Silappadikāram, one of the twin Tamil epics. This work, according to its internal testimony, 23 was composed by C Ilango, the younger brother of the king senguttuvan, who as we have already noticed, was a contemporary of the Sri Lankan Gajabāhu, who flourished in the second half of the second century AD.
From the poet's preface (padikam) of that text we learn that this work was composed at Vañji,24 the capital of the Cera king. We are further told that the poet was then residing in the hermitage of Kaņavāyil, which the commentators explains is a Jaina temple (palli). From the same work we learn26 that an astrologer had predicted that Ilango would succeed his father to the Cera throne. Naturally, this prediction was not taken kindly to by his elder brother
