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1872
JAINA BIBLIOGRAPHY
Saivas. Rāmayya cut of his head, which came back to him on the 7th day after the mutilation. As the Jains did not keep their promise, Rāmayya carried out a wide and systematic persecution against them. The suffering Jains carried the news to Bijjala. Rāmayya offered to repeat the miracle, letting the Jains even to burn the head, promising to recover it as before. The Jains did not accept the challenge, therefore, Bijjala issued a Jayapatra to Rāmayya and granted a village.
P. 265. A fugitive stanza ascribed to Poygaiāļvār, a Vaishnava saint, states : 'we have learnt the religion of the Sakya, that of the Sramanas and examined the Agams composed by Siva etc. The same idea is repeated in one of his own verses, where he says: “The Sramaņas do not understand ; the Bauddhas are in delusion. and those that worship Siva are unknowing innocents. Those who do not worship Vishņu are of low intelligence ndeed.'
P. 266. The feature of the teaching of the Vaišnava saints was that the way of salvation was attainable even to the uninitiated according to the orthodox standards; this element and its teaching gave them the ultimate ascendency among the people even as against the rival creeds of Buddhism, Jainism and Saivism.
P. 284. Rārnānuja carried on controversies with the Jains also.
Pp. 287-291. The chief opponents the Saivas and the Vaishnavas had in view in all their controversies seem to be the Jains. This is but natural, as Jainism was just emerging full-grown owing to the active support and patronage of the Rashtrakūtas, several of them being of that persuasion. Active controversies against the Jains began in the days of Sambandar and Appar under the great Pallava Mahendravarman and his contemporary Pandya Sundara. Owing to bitterness of these controversies persecution of the Jain became common feature of the lives of Saiva and Vaishnava saints compiled at a later period. The most prominent of these are a persecution set up at the instance of Sambandara by his Pandya contemporary Nedumäran, otherwise Küntpändya and Sandara, who was first a Jain. The story has it that the whole body of Jains were impaled. Dr. Vincent Smiru accepted this story as embodying a historical incident--an instance of persecution for religion. Painting of this incident on the walls of the great temple at Madura and in all the bigger Siva temples of the south are found.
It is impossible for history to believe that Rāmayya actually cut off his head and got it back after it was turned to ashes. These stories have always a family kileness, thereby stamping them as pious fabrications of latter day hagiologists.
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