________________
Development & Impact of Jainism in India & Abroad
One of the major aspects of Tamil culture, in which Jain influence has been predominant and most permanent is Tamil language and literature. The Jains have not only created a special niche for themselves in the history of Tamil literature, but also have established basic norms for the Tamil language and linguistics. Jain scholars of the early periods have enriched the Tamil language, composed elegant poems (Kavya), written works on grammar and prosody, complied lexicons and presented lofty ideals of ethics in pithy verses. In the early historical period, Jain composed many poems and were counted among the Canror, the learned members of the Tamil Sangam at Madurai, the Tamil city par excellence under the patronage of the Pandyas. The poems of Uloccanar, who was Jain poet, have been classified among the akam and puram collections, the Kuruntokai and Natrrinai. Kaniyan Punkunran, a Jain poet and astrologer authored a verse of the Puram collection and Natrrinai. The Maturraikkanci of Mankuti Marutanar, refers to a Jain monastery at Madurai and the monks as great seers, who could look into the past and the future, along with the present. The Jain practice of self-immolation by slow starvation or Vatakkiruttal (Sallekhana) is known of their beliefs. However, there is certainly no evidence of Tamil society being influenced in any significant way by their beliefs in the impermanence of worldly life. The Jains were apparently accepted as a group of ascetics or renouncers concerned more with the spiritual aspects of existence and, who, by virtue of their exemplary attitudes, were worthy of respect as an important section of society and to whom lay follows extended their material support. Interestingly while the ideals of ahimsa or non-killing seems to have had great impact, the major themes of love and war dominating the literature of the period and the intensly humanistic approach of the early Tamils to religion and workship remained unaffected by the Jain or Buddhist ideals of renunciation and salvation. The period was characterized by folk traditions, tribal basis of social organisation and different eco-cultural zones called the tinai, each with its own tribal deity, representing different socio-economic milieu. It is only in the marutam or plains, where agricultural operations were intensified and the neital or littoral, where there was a spurt of trade and commercial activity that the Jain and Buddhist religions gained followers, particularly among the traders.
The same Sangam given to the Tamil academy, at the time of the collection and systematic arrangement of the heroic poetry in the 7th -8th centuries. A.D. is often traced to the Jain Dravida Sangha founded in Madurai by one Vajranandi, a pupil of Pujyapada in V.E. 525-AD 468-69. It is further believed that this Sangha merely revived the Mula Sangha of the Jains Presided over by Sri Kundakundacarya around the 1st century BC at a place called Patalika, identified with Tiruppatirippuliyur in the south Arcot district, where a major Jain monastery existed and in the period of Jain ascendancy (4th -6th centuries) when in Prakrit were rendered in Sanskrit, the well-known Loka Vibhaga was rendered in Sanskrit by Muni Sarvanandin in the Patalika monastery. The Jain Sangha at Madurai is also believed to have produced several works in the viruttam genre, some of which like the Nariviruttam, Eliviruttam and kaliviruttam were known to the Bhakti saints like Tirunavukkarasar and Jnanasambandar. In the post-Sangam period (4th6th centuries), representing a transition to a new socio-econimic formation, the Buddhist and Jain
168
