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Lord Mahavira prevailing languages of the different times and different places for their religious propaganda as well as for the preservation of knowledge. In this way, they exercised a predominant influence on the development of the Prakrit languages. They even gave a literary shape to some of the regional languages for the first time.
Mahâvîra preached in the mixed dialect called ardhamagadhi, in order that he might be understood by the people speaking both magadhi and Sauraseni, and his teachings were classified into twelve books called the Srutangas. These were preserved by oral traditions for some time, but were subsequently lost. An effort was made in about 454 A.D., during the tenth century after Mahâvîra's Nirvana, to reconstruct the lost texts, and the result was the present canonical books of the Svetambara Jainas which still preserve for us the form of the ardha-magadhi language. Of late, a very rich literature produced by the Jainas has come to light, which preserves the form of the language as it was current prior to the evolution of the present day regional languages, especially Hindi, Gujarati and Marathi. This language is called Apabhramsa. It forms the link between the classical languages Sanskrit and Prakrit, on the one hand, and the modern regional languages on the other. The earliest literature in Kannada is of Jaina authorship, and the early Tamil literature also owes much to Jaina for both narrative and philosophical works grammar, prosody, lexicography and mathematics.
The Jainas have always taken their due share in the development of arts in the country. They erected stupas, as did the Buddhists, in honour of their saints, with their accessories of stone railings, decorated gate ways, stone umbrellas, elaborately carved pillars and abundant statues. Early examples of these have been discovered at Mathura. Bundelkhand is full of Jaina images of the eleventh and twelfth centuries A.D. The huge statues of Bahubalin, known as Gomatesvara at Shravanabelgola and Karkala in Mysore are among the wonders of the world. The former was erected by Chamundaraya, the minister of the Ganga king Rachamalla during the tenth century A.D. The colossal reliefs carved on the rock-face near Gwalior belong to the fifteenth century A.D. The Jainas also built cave-temples cut in rocks, the earliest examples of which, belonging to the second century B.C. and later period, exist in Orissa, known as Hathigumpha caves.
