Jaina Literature in Tamil

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

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JAINA LITERATURE IN TAMIL
of history. This, taken together with the recent explorations and discoveries in Mohenjodaro and Harappa, reveals a civilisation prior to that of the Aryans1 and gives us an idea of the high state of civilisation that must have been attained by the early Dravidians. For the present all these would remain in the field of speculation till we come across sufficient evidence to reconstruct this early Dravidian culture. Since the extant Tamil literature is said mainly to belong to the 3rd Sangam period, most of the works that we are going to consider must be assigned to this period. This would probably mean from 2nd century B. C. to the 7th century A. D. Since the institution of the Sangam or Academy is taken to be a doubtful entity, the term Sangam is merely used as a conventional term to indicate a certain period in the history of the Tamils.
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The classification of Tamil literature into three distinct periods, viz., natural, ethical and religious suggestedby Mr. Sivaraja Pillai may be taken as a convenient frame-work, since it broadly represents the historical developments of Tamil literature. Some of the ethical works such as the Kural and Nalaḍiyar are freely quoted in the later literature. Hence it could not be altogether a mistake if we suppose that ethical literature seems to be earlier than the kavya literature. In this group of ethical literature, the influence of Jaina teachers is
1. There is no unanimity among scholars on whether the Indus Valley (Harappa and Mohenjodaro) Civilisation is preAryan, Aryan or Dravidian.
2. K. N. Sivaraja Pillai: op. cit., pp. 8-10.