Heart of Jainism

Author(s): Mrs Sinclair Stevenson
Publisher: Mrs Sinclair Stevenson

Page 44

18
HISTORICAL SUMMARY
He razed many of their temples to the ground, massacred their communities and destroyed their libraries. Many of the most beautiful Mohammedan mosques in India have woven into their fabric stones from Jaina shrines which the ruthless conquerors had destroyed.
In the south Jainism had flourished exceedingly after its introduction by Bhadrabāhu, and many of the languages and grammars were largely shaped by the labours of Jaina monks.
In A.D. 640, when the Chinese traveller Hiuen Tsang visited India, he met numbers of monks belonging to the Digambara (naked) sect in the south and admired their beautiful temples. But after his visit a great persecution arose. A Jaina king, Kūna, became converted to Saivism in the middle of the seventh century and, if we may trust the sculptures at Trivatūr in Arcot, slew with the most horrible severity thousands of his former co-religionists who refused to follow his example. Even if the account of the persecution be exaggerated, there is no doubt that after this time the prosperity of Jainism in the south steadily declined.
To return to the north. The wonder is, not that any temples survived the Mohammedan persecutions, but that Jainism itself was not extinguished in a storm which simply swept Buddhism out of India. The character of Jainism, however, was such as to enable it to throw out tentacles to help it in its hour of need. It had never, like Buddhism, cut itself off from the faith that surrounded it, for it had always employed Brāhmans as its domestic chaplains, who presided at its birth rites and often acted as officiants at its death and marriage ceremonies and temple worship. Then, too, amongst its chief heroes it had found niches for some of the favourites of the Hindu pantheon, Rāma, Krişna and the like. Mahāvira's genius for organization also stood Jainism in good stead now, for he had made the laity an integral
· Vincent Smith, Early History of India, third edition, p. 455.