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JAINISM AND KARNĀTAKA CULTURE
secutions he says that these stories seem to have been concocted by the later hagiologists to enhance the glory of their own particular form of religion; and that "in each one of these cases it can be proved conclusively there is no evidence of a general act of persecution, such as is described, as these religions flourished in undiminished influence even after the period to which these persecutions are ascribed.” 164 The general spirit of toleration in India towards creeds other than one's own has been remarkably revealed in our history at least from the time of Asoka to Akbar; and we have also seen that the Jainas received considerable patronage even from rulers who were not themselves Jainas. But from these instances we cannot emphatically deny the fact of pesecutions in South India. The fact that Jainism continued to flourish even long after the 'alleged persecutions” cannot be considered as proof of the falsity of the allegations any more than we can say that there was no persecution of Christianity in Europe, or of Hinduism under the Muhommadan rulers, since these religions have survived to our own days and continue to flourish if at all with greater vigour. If the several traditions can be explained away as mere concoctions of hagiologists, the following facts are certainly incapable of dubious interpretation :
(1) In the Madura and Tinnevelly Districts a barbarous relic of the old persecutions of the Samanal is still kept up in the ceremonial form koown as Kulavettal (lit. impaling). “The model of a human head is stuck on a pike and carried in a procession ; some sit as if impaled on a stake; others appear to be hanging from the gibbets, etc. The idea of the performance is to suggest mutilation, and there can be little doubt that it is intended to commemorate the savage treatment which the Jainas of old received at the hands of their Saiva persecutors."166
(2) a cave near the Anjaneya temple at Bețţadapura (Coorg) there is a linga on the pedestal of which is written
164 Ibid., pp. 238-39. 165 Tinnevelly Gazetteer 1, pp. 100-102; Madura Gazetteer I, pp. 74, 297.
