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RELIGIOUS SECTS
On the Coromandel side of the Peninsula the Jains were introduced upon the downfall of the Bauddhas, in the reign of AMOGHAVARSHA, king of Tondai Mandalam, in the ninth century or, according to some traditions, in the eighth. Farther south, in Madura, the date of their introduction is not known, but they were in power in the eleventh century under KUNA PÁNØYA. In this, and in the twelfth, they seem to have reached their higliest prosperity, and from that period to have declined. KUNA PÁNDYA became a Saiva. VISHNU VARDDHANA, Rájá of Mysore, was converted from the Jain to the Vaishnava faith in the twelfth century, and about the same time the Lingavant Saivus deposed and murdered VIJALA, the Jain king of Kalyán". The sect, liowever, continued to meet with partial countenance from the kings of Vijayanagar until a comparatively modern date.
The conclusions founded on traditionary or historical records are fully supported by the testimony of monuments and inscriptions—the latter of which are exceedingly numerous in the south and west of India. Most of these are very modern-none are earlier than the ninth century. An exception is said to exist in an inscription on a rock at Belligola, recording a grant of land by Chámunda Ráya to the shrine of GOMATİŚVARA, in the year 600 of the Kali age, meaning the Kali of the Jains, which began three years after the death of VARDDHAMÁNA. This inscription, therefore,
* [Lassen, Ind. Alt., IV, 119 ff., 237 ff.]
