Jainism in South India and Some Jaina Epigraphs

Author(s): P B Desai
Publisher: Jain Sanskruti Samrakshak Sangh Solapur

Page 53

3. JAINISM IN TAMIL NAD
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of monks and instructed him to proceed still further to the Chola and Pandya countries. Accordingly Visakhacharya repaired to those regions and propagated the tenets of the Jaina Law among their inhabitants who were already familiar with the doctrine. Bhadrabahu is known to have deceased by the beginning of the third century B. C. (B. C. 297). So the earlier contact of Jainism with the Chola and Pandya countries, i. e., the Tamil Nāḍ, as specified in this account, may be postulated approximately by the period of the 4th century B. 0.
Testimony of another literary source is available to show that the above statement of Devachandra is not unfounded. Ratnanandi, a writer of the 15th ceutnry A. D., gives an account of Bhadrabahu's exodus to Karnataka on similar lines in his Sanskrit work entitled Bhadrabahucharita and states that Visakhacharya, the disciple of Bhadrabahu, led the Jaina samgha at the instance of his guru to the Chōla country.
2
ROCKY BEDS AND EPIGRAPHS: After this we pass on to a different category of sources whose evidence should be considered direct and decisive. In consequence of the researches conducted by the enthusiastic scholars of the Epigraphist's office, Madras, a large number of caverns containing beds carved out in the rock has been discovered in the hills and mountainous regions in the Pudukkottai area and Madura and Tinnevelly Districts of the Madras State. The two last-named areas are particularly rich in these antiquities and the Madura District is known to possess considerably numerous monuments of this kind. These caverns are generally situated on mountain slopes at almost inaccessible heights, in out-of-the-way places and in the interior of dense forests inhabited by wild beasts. The beds sometimes designated as Pañchapaṇḍava beds are made into shape by chiselling the stone and usually possess the elevation of a pillow. The caverns as a rule are provided with the conveniences of natural water supply. From this description it may be seen that these rocky hermitages on the hills must have been, at one time, occupied by ascetics, monks and recluses who wanted to spend their lives in secluded retirement far from the habitations crowded by worldly people.
The very position and nature of these stony couches which are characteristically simple and austere would point to their great antiquity. But on account of their association, in majority of instances, with inscriptions written in ancient script, it has been possible to determine the age of these
1 Ep. Carn., Vol. II, Introduction, p. 39; Studies in South Indian Jainism, pp. 20 and 32.
?
2 Ep. Carn., Vol. II, Introduction, p. 38.
3 Vide An. Rep. on S. I. Epigraphy, 1907, pp. 46-47; 1908, pp. 46-47;
1909, pp. 67-70; 1910, pp. 66-69, etc.