Jain Journal 1976 01

Author(s): Jain Bhawan Publication
Publisher: Jain Bhawan Publication

Page 37

JANUARY, 1976
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B. C. and it was patronised by king Pandukabhaya who built monasteries for Jaina monks at Anuradhapur. King Candragupta Maurya and king Pandukabhaya were the contemporary rulers. So it is presumable that the Jaina missions went to Ceylon in that period from Tamilnad through Kanyakumari by crossing the narrow strips of Straits lying in the sea, although Jainadharma does not allow the Jaina monks to cross the water way of the sea. But it should be remembered that Mahavira himself more than once crossed the river Gandak by boat.
According to the historians and the oceanographers, there was a vast land called Lemuria lying to the south of Kanyakumari which got submerged under the sea, while Silapathikaram (an epic work in Tamil) reveals that there were a mountain range by the name of Kumari Kodu and a river called Pahruli in the submerged Lemuria108.
Cultural Impact of Jainadharma and Its Mission in South India as a whole
Probably after some missionary failure Jainadharma was imported by the Jaina missionary monks during the reign of and at the instigation of king Samparti107 to Anaryadesas--Andhras, Dravidas, etc. at the end of the third century B. C. or shortly after the beginning of the second century B. C. It took root, however, only during the fourth century A. D.108 and found expression in the more frequent appearances of the native Jaina monks. Then in the fifth, sixth and seventh centuries109 it was officially supported by some south Indian states through patronage, donations, numerous pilgrimages and missions, entrance of some princes into the Jaina monastic order110. With the eighth and finally ninth centuries, through great persecution of the Jaina monks and Sanghas instituted by the Saivites111 the back bone of Jainadharma and its monastic orders in South India was broken without, however, its permanent or complete destruction. The decisive opponent of Jainism in South India
106 Jain Journal. October, 1969, p. 91 f. 107 Brhatkalpasutra and its Bhasya, gathas 3288, 3289. 108 See Jainism in South India by P. B. Desai, Introduction. Ayyana Mahadevi,
the wife of Eastern Calukya king Kubja Visnuvardhana, junior brother of Pulakesin II (1st. quarter of the seventh century A.D.) made gift of the village Musinikunda to a Jaina monastery, see JSI, pp. 19-20. Feudatory princes of Eastern Calukya kingdom were devout Jainas, e.g. Naravahana I, his son Melaparaja, Bhima, and Naravahana II were devout Jainas., JSI, p. 20.
Jainism in South India, Introduction. 111 Ibid., p. X, see Preface, pp. 11-12, 23, 24; see also Mediaeval Jainism by
Saletore, p. 280.
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