Jain Journal 1986 10

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

Page 35

OCTOBER, 1986
declared Kerala as a lunatic asylum not only for singing obscene songs by men and women who went on pilgrimage to Kodungallur but also for the caste distinctions of untouchability and unapproachability observed by higher castes towards the lower castes of people. The second attack was on Silappadikaram. A number of errotic verses were interpolated in the great epic poem with the ulterior motive of casting aspersions on the saintly character of Ilamko Adikal and prove that inspite of his ascetic life, the hermit hankered after sexual pleasures and had even indulged in sexual enjoyment. Besides these machinations of interested non-Jainas. several Kannaki temples in Kerala were also believed to have been destroyed during the Saivite Revivalist Movement in Tamilnadu and Kerala.
Mathari the Brahmin lady and companion of Kannaki has exhorted the people to observe the five precepts in their every day life according
Silappadikaram. It is certain that although Mathari is a Brahmin lady she professed the Jain religion. The observance of the five precepts originally expounded by Rsabhadeva is the one and the only path to spiritual enlightenment and self-realisation, nirvāṇa or emancipation from births and deaths, the world of sufferings. It is certain that the five precepts observed by any person in his or her life would elevate them to realise the hidden secrets of the Cosmic Order--the oneness of God, the oneness of all religions, the oneness of life, the oneness of the human spirit and the oneness of mankind.
All the present-day calamities both natural and unnatural would cease to torment mankind with the observance of the five precepts in their daily life, is the Cosmic Law. When we violate the five precepts, global wars including nuclear hostilities would annihilate mankind sooner or later is the firm conviction of the writer.
In conclusion, I wish to continue my story on the life of the Jain nun Kavunthi Adikal. Once the nun visited Srirangam near Tiruchirapalli in Tamilnad where she met three Jain hermits known as Caranas who gave her a discourse on Jain philosophy and vanished into the air. The Caranas could float and fly in the air to long distances. They could also disappear in the high skies without any trace whatsoever to the outside world of humanity. The Tirucchanattu-malai or Tirucharana-malai, a hill situated between the highway running from Nagercoil to Trivandrum was a famous retreat of Carana Jaina hermits in Kerala in ancient times. The hill was peopled by Jainas from all parts of India till the 11th century A.D. Today the hill is called Chitral derived from Chitralayam, the temple of pictures or images carved on the rock with inscriptions. One among