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created many women stalwarts among Tamils. AVVAI, KURATHI, KAUNTI etc. are the terms that refer to learned women of Tamilnadu. There are many Tamil works that are addressed to women. This also shows the concern of Jains towards the education of Tamil women.
Equality of women for religious study spread among Tamils due to Jaina influence.
ARTS AND ARCHITECTURE :
The influence of Jains in the fields of Arts and Architecture is remarkable. Jains were the pioneers in the field of Temple architecture. The Jaina conceptions of divinity and prayer paved the way for temples. for Arbnts. The earlier forms of places of worship are cave temples, bas-reliefs and monolithic granite idols. Later massive temples with distinct gopurams and mandaps were constructed. The earliest extant temples of grandeur are the Jain temples. Temple worship paved way for iconography, wall paintings and sculpturing. The cave paintings at Sithannavasal in Pudukottai district and Tirumalai in North Arcot district show the Jains interest in paintings. Jains standardised the te.nple architecture. This has inspired and influenced the Tamils of other religious faiths also to construct massive temples.
In the Jaina temple arcitecture a stambha called Manastambha is a unique feature. This is installed. in the front of the mahamandapa and generally taller than the Vimana above the Garbhagriba.
There are
Patronage of fine arts by Jains influenced and encouraged Tamils to develop these arts. many jaina Tamil works that speak in length about these.
Jains and Jainism by their presence in Tamil country influenced Tamils to a larger extent in diverse fields like culture, language, literature and social ethics.
"Kural or Tirukkural, the most popular Tamil classic, also known as the Tamil Veda and highly admired all over the world, is also attributed by tradition to Kundakunda, his another name teing Elācārya. It is said that after composing it he gave the work to his disciple Tiruvalluvar who introduced it to the Sangama at Madura. It appears that the Sarasvati movement also marked the beginning of Tamil Literature and it is very likely that the Jaina ascetic scholars of the South took a leading part in the literary activity of the early Tamil Sangama. The authorship of Tolkappiyam, the earliest Tamil grammar which seems to have preceded even the Kural, is also attributed to a Jaina. No wonder that Kundakunda who was the foremost leader of the South Indian Jain Congregation, a great author, and a Dravidian by birth, was associated with the early literary activity in Tamil a's)".
--Jyoti Prasad Jain, The Jaina Sources of the History of Ancient India, Delhi, 1964. p. 126
जैन इतिहास, कला और संस्कृति
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