________________
Retrospect
369
the Jainas were good story-tellers themselves and have preserved. to us numerous Indian tales that otherwise would have been lost.71 Kāvyas and Mahākāvyas, too, of renowned merit have been composed by Jaina poets. Lyrical and didactic poetry also are well represented in the literature of the Jainas. Apart from these, most valuable contributions have been made by the Jainas to Indian scientific. and technical literature on various subjects like logic, philosophy, poetics, grammar, lexicography, astronomy, astrology, geography, matbematics and medicine.72 The Jainas have also paid special attention to the Arthaśāstra (or Politics ) which is considered to be “a worldly science" par excellence. Thus there is hardly any branch of science that has not been ably treated by Jainas.73
The literature of the Jainas is also very important from the point of view of the history of the Indian languages; for the Jainas always took care that their writings were accessible to considerable masses of the people. Hence the canonical writings and the earliest commentaries are written in Prakrit dialects and at a later period Sanskrit and various modern Indian languages were used by the Jainas.74 It is not an exaggeration when Wilson says that every province of Hindusthan can produce Jaina compositions, either in Sanskrit or its vernacular idiom.75 It has already been observed how the Jaipas have enriched various regional languages and especially Hindi, Gujarāthī, Kannada, Tamil and Telugu.76 Regard. ing the Jaina contribution to Kannada literature the great Kannada scholar R. Narasimhāchārya has remarked that “The earliest cultivators of the language were Jainas. The oldest works of any extent and value that have come down to us are all from the pen of the Jainas. The period of Jainas predominance in the literary field may justly be called the Augustan Age of Kannada literature. Jaina authors in Kannada are far more numerous than in Tamil. To name only a few, we have Pampa, Ponna, Ranna, Gunavarma, Nāgachandra, Nayasena, Nāgavarmā, Aggala, Nemichandra, Janna, Andayya, Bandhuvarma, and Madhura, authors whose works are admired as excellent specimens of poetic composition. It is only in Kannada that we have a Rāmāyana and a Bhārata based on the Jaina tradition in addition to the same works based on Brahmapical tradition. Besides Kāvyas written by Jaina authors we have numerous works by them dealing with subjects J...24
