Jaina Literature in Tamil

Author(s): A Chakravarti, K V Ramesh
Publisher: Bharatiya Gyanpith

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maṇ Avaṇiśūļāmaņi (A.D. 620-44) or his grandson Arikēsari Māravarman (A.D. 670-700), till then a Jain, to the Saiva faith. There is a tradition that the newly converted Pandyan ruler persecuted and impaled 8000 Jainas at the instance of Tirujñānasambandhar and a series of frescoes on the maṇḍapa of the famous Minäkşi temple tank at Madurai illustrates this gruesome event. Exaggeration apart, the Periyapurāṇam account of the saints and the hymns of Appar also make it evident that both in the Pallava and Pāṇḍya countries the Jainas were subjected to some degree of persecution in the 7th-8th centuries A.D. Of the āļvār saints, Tirumaliśai, an elder contemporary of Mahendravarman I, had for sometime been a follower of Jainism before he finally became an ardent Vaiṣṇava saint; Tirumangai, who lived in the middle of the 8th century and Tondaraḍippodi, who followed him a century later, included in their hymns attacks and invectives against Jainism1.
This organised and sustained campaign conducted during the 7th-10th centuries did finally break all tangible resistance on the part of Jainism which lost much ground in Tamiļnāḍu during the later part of Pallava and Pandya rule. Flourishing Jaina strongholds such as Pataliputra (modern Tiruppāpuliyūr, Cuddalore), Ārpakkam, Magaral and Madurai, lost their importance". In the subsequent period, the Cōļas, who were
1. See M. S. Ramaswami Ayyangar : Studies in South Indian Jainism (1922, Madras), pp. 67, 79; K.A. Nilakanta Sastri: History of South India (III edn., 1966), pp. 424 and 426.
2.
TASSI, 1957-58, p. 25.