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JAINA LITERATURE IN TAMIL
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in these nine groups as Kesava, Baladēva and Prativāsudēva. Similarly Śrī Kṛṣṇa of Bharata fame is one of the nine Vasudēvas, his brother Balarama is one of the Baladevas and Jarasandha of Magadha one of the nine Prativasudevas. While narrating the life of each Tirthankara, stories of the royal dynasties are also given. Thus this work Sripurāṇa, since it contains the story of these 63 heroes, is considered to be the Puranic treasure-house from which isolated stories are taken by independent authors. Unfortunately it is not yet published. It still lies buried in palmleaves manuscript, and it is hoped that some day in the near future it will be made available to the students of Tamil literature.
Next we have to notice some works on prosody and grammar contributed by Jaina authors.
Yapparungalakkārikai1:-This work on Tamil prosody is by one Amṛtasagara. Though it is not definitely known at what period he lived, it may be safely asserted that the work is old by 1000 years. Since the invocatory verse is addressed to Arhatparamēṣṭhi, it is obvious that the work is by a Jaina author. The author himself suggests that the work is based on a Sanskrit work on the same topic. Probably
1. The following are the editions of Yapparungalakkärigai : (1) Pañcalakṣaṇa Mulam, Ed. by Ramaswamigal, Madras, 1886, includes the texts of Nannül, Agapporul-viļakkam, Purapporul-venba, Yapparungalakkārigai, Daṇḍiyalaǹkāram, Nēminätham, Virasōliyam, etc.
(2) Yapparungalakkärigai with Kumaraswami Pulavar's commentary. Ed. by Ambalavana Pillai, 1908, 1925 and 1938.
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