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28
JAINA MONUMENTS
To the people at Tiruparuttikunram the tradition iegarding Akalanka alonc is fresh in their minds while the earlier minis and the later ascetics are alınost forgotten. It is easy to understand this for the tradition regarcling Akalanka is kept alive at a neighbouring Jaina village called Tiruppanamür, about twelve miles from Kāichi, where a big stone mortar in the local temple is explained by the temple pricsts as the one employed by Akalanka to pound the vanquished aliens, and a sculpture on the compound wall of the temple in front ol the said mortar showing a Jaina ascetic in the attitude of preaching, as illustrating the propaganda work of the sage who told the people around that Jainism was superior to all other religions, that much virtue would accrue as a result of being a Jaina and that if any one should insist on continuing to be an alien in spite of his preachings the mortar would grind him in no tine.
Nothing but their names is known of the sages subsequent to Akalanka who flourished in or about Tiruparuttikunram, till we come to 1199 A.D. The temple inscriptions and those at Arunagiri-meslu fortunately throw light on some more sages. Thus for instance inscriptions Nos. 3 and 22* speak of a guru called Chandrakīrti who flourished at Tiruparuttikunram and whose remains have been interred at Arunagiri-indu and a samadhi erected over them there. In the former inscription dlated 1199 A.D. the gift of twenty vēlis of land in the village of Ambi to the temple is received from Kulottunga III, to wliom the recipients made clear that the temple at Tiruparuttikunram deserved his patronage because there lived in it their gurut, Chandrakīrti. The king not only gave twently vēlis of land to the temple but also gave Chandrakirti the title "the ācharya of Kottaiyür" in taken of his appreciation of the latter's
tom
Patronar i
# T. N. Ramachandran, "Tiruparuttikunram Pp. 50: 61:
and
its
temples".
