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4. JAINU I KAWATAKA
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169
In the course of our epigraphical review above, we have noticed three instances of nuns who held positions of importance in the Jaina ecclesiastical set up. One is the Kanti Rātrimati of the Honnür inscription, who owned & lay disciple in Bammagāvunda. The other is the nun Huliyabbājjike, disciple of Srīnandi Pandita, who was formal recipient of the gift to a temple, according to an epigraph from Sorațūr. The third is the Ashtöpavāsi Kantiyâr of the Gudigere record. Another well-known instance is that of Kanti, the poetess, who was a colleague and a contemporary of the Kannada poet Abhinava Pampa. Many more instances of Kantis are available in the inscriptions of Karnāțaka and it is unnecessary to notice them all in this brief review.
The logical consequence and natural culmination of the freedom movement for women advocated by the Yāpaniyas, may reasonably be traced in the monastic order of the lady preceptors or Kurattiyārs, which had developed on a large scale in the Tamil country as seen before. This is quite unique in the history of Indian monachism. Thus there was undoubtedly a position of van. tage commanded by the preceptors of the Jaina church in South India, and it must have facilitated their scoring many a success over the champions of the rival creeds.
JAINĀBRĀSAS: It is the inevitable fate of all unorthodox reformists that they are condemned as irreligious and heretics by the more conservative and orthodox sections who pride in their puritanism. This was what happened to the Yāpaniyas and others of their view. The Yāpaniyas' were looked upon by later writers as Jainābhāsas or pseudo-Jaina, and it is interesting to note that of the five monastic orders included in the heterodox category, two, viz., the Yāpanīyas and the Drāvidas, seem to cover the almost entire range of the Jaina church in South India. For, the Yāpaniyas who figure prominently in Karnāțaka and, though sparsely, in the Andhra country, roughly represent the Kannada and the Telugu regions; and the Drāvidas stand for the whole of the Tamil country.
JaIna AsortiCS OF SOUTH INDIA: We are convinced from the foregoing study that Jainism enjoyed wide popularity and was for many long centuries the foremost religion of Karnāțuka and the Tamil land, the two main regions of South India. We have seen how large areas of northern Karnātaka formed the main sphere of intensive activities of the Yāpanīya inonks who held liberal views on religious precepts and practices. We have also gathered an adequate quantity of facts in respect of the religious zeal and efficient proselytizing methods of the monastic groups that flourished in the Tamil country. On the basis of these findings we may note the following useful results:
1 The Yāpantya teachers seem to have practised occult lore at a later age. On account
of this they possibly derived the name 'yopya' or 'secret order'. See Jains Literature and History, p. 41.
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