Book Title: Jainism in South India and Some Jaina Epigraphs
Author(s): P B Desai
Publisher: Jain Sanskruti Samrakshak Sangh Solapur
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JAINISM IN SOUTH INDIA
known as the Paisachi Prakrit. One of the areas where Paisachi Prakrit is said to have been in vogue was the Pandya country, and this description agrees with the provenance of these inscriptions. Dr. C. Narayana Rao, the protagonist of this theory, has substantiated his agruments by interpreting these records in keeping with his theory.'
JAINA ORIGIN: We may pass over the disputed question of the language and the contents of the epigraphs and concentrate our attention on those relics, which are closely related with these records, to wit, the natural caverns with their unique rows of rock-cut beds. There is adequate justification to maintain that these monuments, at any rate, the majority of them, could not have been primarily and exclusively Buddhistic in their origin. The grounds for such a contention are as follows:
First, although it is possible to postulate the infiltration of Buddhism in the Tamil country and in Ceylon prior to the epoch of the third century B. C., it gained neither strength nor prominence in these regions. The Buddhist doctrine gathered momentum only during the later period of the century on account of the mighty support and patronage it received at the hands of the Mauryan emperor Aśoka on the one side and of the Ceylon ruler Devānāmpriya Tissa on the other." On the contrary, as we have observed while dealing with the history of Jainism in the Andhra Dōsa, Jaina teachers were the early enthusiastic leaders of missionary movements in South India." This observation is confirmed by the prevalence of Jainism in Ceylon during the early age of the 4th century B. o. noticed above. We have also discussed with the help of some literary traditions the possibility that the Tamil Nad could not have been excluded from the sphere of missionary activities of these early teachers of the Jaina Law in those days.
Sécondly, we have to note the Jaina associations and environments of many of these caverns and monuments. Here are a few by way of illustration: 1) At Tirupparankunram, not far away from one of the caverns noticed above, have been found two square depressions cut into the rock at an inaccessible height. These squares contain standing naked figures with
1 New Indian Antiquary, 1938-39, pp. 362 ff.
2 Mahavamsa, chapter xi.
3 The more enduring and wider imprint left on the life and literature in Tamil land by Jainism stands in favour of their proselytizing activities. Scholars who viewed this problem from the Buddhist point of view had also to concede the early association of these monuments with the Jaina monks. Absence of other Buddhist 'relios in these caverns as in Ceylon and the prevalence of Jaina relics in them, on the contrary, are some of the serious questions of the problem which have not been answered properly by the Buddhist protagonists. Vide An, Rep on S. 1. Epigraphy, 1907. p. 47; 1909, p. 70,
