Jainism

Author(s): Annie Besant
Publisher: Theosophical Publishing House

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JAINISM
the Jaina community, have become the common property of all India - grammars, lexicons, books on rhetoric and on medicine - these are to be found in immense numbers and have been adopted wholesale in India. The well-known Amarakośa, for instance, is a Jaina work that every student of Sanskrit learns from beginning to end.
I said the Jainas came to Southern India - spreading downwards through the whole of the southern part of the peninsula. We find them giving kings to Madurai, to Trichinopoly' and to many another city in Southern India. We find not only that they thus give rulers; but we find they are the founders of Tamil literature. The Tamil grammar, said to be the most scientific grammar that exists, is a Jaina production. The popular grammar, Namal, by Pavanandi, is Jaina, as is Naladiyar. The famous poet Tiruvalluvar's Kural, known I suppose to every Southerner, is said to be a Jaina work, for this reason, that the terms he uses are Jaina terms. He speaks of the Arhats; he uses the technical terms of the Jaina religion, and Now called Tiruchirapalli.