________________
402
JAINISM IN SOUTH INDIA 2) The campaign of hatred and harassment carried on against the Jainas was sustained till as late a period as the 16th century. This is instanced by the Śrīśailam record mentioning a Virasaiva chief who prided over his achievement of beheading the Svētāmbara Jainas.
3) The testimony of another record is equally eloquent on the subject. This epigraph which comes from Elamalapalle,' nearabout Śrīśailam, is dated in A. D. 1529, i. e., slightly later than the above inscription. It describes a devotee of the god Mallikärjuna as 'the establisher of the Six Darśanas' and 'a menace to the heads of the Svētāmbara Jainas' (Svētāmbara-tala-guņdu-ganda).
4) Proceeding to the Tamil country works like the Periyapurāņam contain graphic accounts of the persecution of the Jainas. Statements blackmailing the Jainas are found in the treatises like the Sthalapurāņa of Madura. As it would be unsound to treet such writings as figments of imagination, we have to assume their veracity making due allowance for the tendency to exaggerate. These descriptions are further substantiated by the representations in sculptures and paintings in places like Tiruvattūr and Madura.
That the Jainas were not permitted to pursue their ancestral faith peacefully even in Karnāțaka which was their most favoured land, is seen from the militant activities of Ekāntada Rāmayya which have been depicted in contemporary literature, inscriptions and sculptures. Vira Goggidēva and Viruparasa added fuel as it were to the fire of aggression let loose by Ēkāntada Rāmayya. In the latter half of the 14th century the Jainas were considerably harassed, and they had to appeal for protection to the ruling power of Vijayanagara. A study of the circumstances that necessitated mediation by the Vijayanagara king Bukka I, and the conditions that were imposed in favour of the Juinas in the kingdom,* make this fact clear.
I may conclude this brief note with a citation of an eminent scholar who has made a close study of the subject and arrived at a similar result.
“And nothing is more regrettable than that in the matter of showing tolerance to the followers of their rival creeds, especially to the Jainas, the Hindus of southern India should have been so ungenerous as to have had recourse to a method of retaliation and revenge which was so alien to the prover. bially hospitable nature of the Hindus.”
1 An. Reps, on S, I. Epigraphy for 1943-44 and 1944-45, App. B, No. 24 of 1943-44. 2 Vide above, p. 82. 3 Vide above, pp. 182–83. 4 Ep. Carn., Vol. II, No. 334; B. A. Saletore: Mediaeval Jainism, pp. 288 ff. 5 Mediaeval Jainism, p. 270.
.
