Jainism

Author(s): N R Guseva
Publisher: Sindu Publications P L

Page 70

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JAINISM
munities was especially active. Here in the edifice of many Jain castes, there are groups, professing Vishnuism, and in the edifice of many Hindu castes, there are components which are registered as jains.11 In the south, its own castes were formed in the Jain community, and those castes as a whole, fell apart from the Hindu community.
Here the names of Jain castes are not met with in the edifice of Hindu castes. Possibly this shows that the process of formation of Jain community in the south took place on the basis of greater isolation from Hindu community, in which, as is known, the early Bhakti sect attained high develop ment. In this, the struggle between communities, which is referred to above is also reflected. The struggle did not cease even in the first half of the second millennium A.D. It is known that Jains complained to the ruler of Vijaynagar, Bukkarai about oppression from the side of Vishnuits and he commanded in 1368 both the communities to end enmity and to profess their own faiths peacefully.12
Southern Jains do not have recourse to the services of the Brahmins, as Jains from the north and west do, and have their own Upaddhyayas (priests) serving within their own community.
In the ninth-fifteenth centuries the south Indian JainDigambaras were called 'Panchamas' (the fifth) i.e. those who are placed outside the framework of the four varnas of Jainism. It is true there is another interpretation of this name and that is that in the fifth group amongst Jains, there are only those members of the community who acknowledge marriages of widows,13 because of which other groups of Jains regard the pancham as the lowest group. In order to free themselves from their low position, many panchams merged into Shaivaite sect of Lingayats, who did not acknowledge the caste restrictions.
It is considered that much of the ethical teaching and philosophy of Lingayats is borrowed from the Jains. The majority of Lingayats, as also the Jains, are traders and usurers, which fact serves as direct confirmation of extensive conversion of
11. Ibid., p. 100. 12. K. A. Nilakantha Shastri, op. cit., p. 69. 13. V. A. Sangave, op. cit., pp. 105, 107. 14. Ibid., p. 106.