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JAINISM IN SOUTH INDIA
Kavunti was the guardian angel as it were, who escorted the hero and the heroine to their destination. We may not be wrong, if we are inclined to think that the hero and the heroine of the epic are also portrayed as the followers of the Jaina faith. In one place the allusion is precise, stating that Kõvalan observed the vows of the Srāvakas. There are other items of Jaina attachment such as the elaborate description of ascetic practices, belief in the activities of the Chāraņas, which should prove the religious leanings of the author in favour of Jainism. There is nothing unhistorical in the position that a prince of the ancient ruling family in the western part of the Tamil land should have been influenced by the doctrine of Jainism; for there are reasons to believe that Jainism had penetrated to the farthest points of South India in the very early period of its history.
6. Further Faots In this section I propose to record further evidence in support of our findings made out earlier in respect of the state of Jainism as it obtained in the two regions of the Andhra Dosa and Tamil Nād. This has been necessitated in view of some valuable additional material that is forthcoming as a result of the zealous activities of the members of the Epigraphist's Office during recent years.8
EMINENT SACE VÆISHABHA: There lived, in the 7th century A. n. at Penikelapādu in the Jammalınadugu taluk of the Cuddapah Dt. a great preceptor of the Jaina Law, who appears to have wielded considerable influence by his profound learning and ascetic practices. The inscription furnishing information about him is engraved in archaic Kannada-Telugu alphabet and Sanskrit language on the rock overhanging a small natural cave on the hill near the above village. The epigraph is not dated, but may be ascribed to the 7th century A. D. on palaeographical considerations. In a verse composed in the Anushțubh metre, the record states that on this mountain resided the supreme sage named Vrishabha who was the mighty cloud to the crops in the form of the faithful followers of the Jaina Law and who stood unshakable like the mountain in the disputations with the advocates of the rival schools. The small natural cave must have evidently served as the
1 Silappadikāram, p. 52. 2 Ibid., p. 220. 3 I am gratefol to the authorities of the Epigraphical Branch for the kind permission to
utilise this unpublished material in the proof stage, which was accessible to me as & member of the Office of the Government Epigrapbist for India, An. Rep. on 8. I. Epigraphy, 1939-40 to 42-43, Appendix B, No. 401 of 1940-41. The verse in question with slight adjustment may be read thus: re
fer : 1 T
O IRT ( Biraat ) ferritetit
