________________
213
THE INDIAN ANTIQUARY
[AUGUST, 1911.
parts of the country to continue the work begun by them, it will be readily conceded that there was not much scope for Jainism or Buddhism to gain ground in southern India. The fact that Samkaracharya, though born in the south, mostly worked in the north, might perhaps be taken to show that already doring his time the two heretical faiths were on the high road to decline in the Dekkan by the loss of the hold they had on the Dravidian kings.
The mathas already alluded to are a living institution in southern India, even at the present day. Those of the advaita philosophy are found in many a place; and three or four of them have succession lists of their pontiffs, dating back to the originator--and living representatives of great ability and vast learning. At present there is a matha of Sankaracharya in the Mysore territory with Sringeri as his headquarters and another at Sivaganga in the same province. A third extends its spiritual sway over the ancient Pallava and Chôļa dominions with its seat at Kumbhakoram. Nênasambanda's mathas are also found in several towns. Those found at Dharmapuri, Tirappattûr and Tiruvaduturai are perhaps reminiscences of the mathas originated by one or the other of the three Saiva saints. While Hinduism made such rapid strides with powerful exponents, the two other creeds, having lost royal support and without proper votaries to advance their cause, seem to have died a natural death in the course of a few years after the 9th century A. D., except in Mysore.
The longevity of these sects in the Kanarese country was rather great as the kings of that place, piz., the Western ChâJakyas and the Hoysalas, seem to have fostered them till a late period. The extirpation of the Jainas in this tract of land is in a measure due to the rise of the Lingayat or Virasaivs creed in the 12th century A. D. Two of the foremost leaders of this sect were Basava and Chenna-Babave. An account of their triumphant disputations with the Jainas is found in the Basava-purâna. The king, who supported their caase, was the Western Chalukya Jayasimha II, who is said to have been converted ta, the Saiva faith by his wife's spiritual guru, Devaradasa. This person is also credited with having defeated the Jainas in disputation. The most powerful advocate of the Lingayat sect was a certain Ekânta Ramayya. About this time Ramanuja, one of the ablest Vaishnava reformers, who lived at the end of the 11th and the earlier part of the 12th centuries A. D., converted the Hoysala king, Bitti oi Dvarasamudra, to Vaishnavism, stayed for a number of years in Mysore and performed a tour of pilgrimage. These were briefly some of the causes that led to the decline of Jainism in the Kanarese country.
In this paper, I have attempted to show that Buddhism was in all probability known in the Pandya country a few centuries prior to the time of Asoka, but that during the reign of the Singhalese king, Tissa, it counted several followers there, through the efforts of Aritta and those who accompanied him; that Buddhism was introduced in several other parts of the Dekkan from .northern India by the missionary influence of Asoka ; furthered by the Gupta or Satavahana and Pallava migration in the 1st century A. D., it gradually spread throughout southern India; that Jainism also dated back to the same period; that the votaries of the latter creed pat a permanent barrier to the growth of the former in the 7th and 8th centuries; that the rise of the Saiva saints, the Vaishyava Alvârs, the advaita philosopber, Sankaracharya, and Manikkavachagar and their peregrinations throughout the Dekkan, the establishment of the mathas by almost all of them which continue their work even to the present day, effectively removed the two religions from southern India in the course of a few years after the 9th century A. D.; and that Jainism continued for three more centuries in Mysore and was stamped out by the Lingayat rising and the advent of Ramânaja in the 12th centary A. D.
