Jains Through Time

Author(s): Shilapi Sadhvi
Publisher: Veerayatan

Page 84

The Jains through Time
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that was responsible for Jainism's later became practically impossible to follow? 37 decline in South India.
The severity with which Jainism's canon law
was interpreted made its observances Some historians say that the rise of the increasingly isolationist and obscure, Shaiv-Nayanars and the Vaishnav-Alvars was transforming it from an object of piety to responsible for the fall of Jainism in South one of derision. Now royal patronage, India, but I believe that in reality there was which had once been the domain of the a dearth of charismatic acharyas capable of Jains, began to be conferred on Shaivites bringing religion and politics together. and Vaishnavites. It is a well-accepted truth Jainism decayed because the Jain shramans that when royal patronage is withdrawn lacked the ability necessary to win royal from a particular religion and the ruler favour, or provide strong leadership for their actively opposes it, the religion goes into a own religious order. They were not decline. adaptable enough to the changing environment to spread the message of Whatever anyone may say, I believe that if Jainism effectively among the masses. the tradition of having acharyas imbued Indifferent to the challenge posed by the with vital spiritual energy had been kept up, growing influence of other religions, and then no force would have been strong dogged by a tendency to turn inwards, the enough to get rid of Jainism in South India. shramans ended by increasingly insisting on the purely private struggle for their own Why is the Land of Bihar Bereft? spiritual liberation. This was what ended Though much is expected from the Jain Jainism's spiritual supremacy in South India. sadhus and sadhvis, in the present context I
will limit myself to a request that they Shri Ramaswami Ayyangar has said: emulate the deeds of the great Tirthankars. “Jainism's once popular teachings became so They should look to their splendid past for strict and its observances so severe, that they inspiration - the past where the glorious sun
Dakshin Bharat Mein Jain Dharma, Pt. Kailash Chandra Shastri, p.18