Mahavira and his Teaching

Author(s): C C Shah, Rishabhdas Ranka, Dalsukh Malvania
Publisher: Bhagwan Mahavir 2500th Nirvan Mahotsava Samiti

Page 310

THE ASCENDENCY & ECLIPSE OF BHAGAVAN MAHAVIRA’S CULT 303 and rectified the erroneous decision of the Jaina Council regarding the reconstructed text of the lost Jaina canon. But we have enough evidence to assume that the majority of the 12,000, who had migrated to the South, had chosen to settle down there. What mundane vested interests could these selfless monks have had in the north to take the risk of another 1500-mile-long journey back on foot ?
16. The first activity which must have naturally appealed to them was to learn Tamil, the language of the locality. We do not know whether Tamil had a written script at all before that time, even though 'Tolkāppiam', the earliest extant grammar of the Tamil language, ascribing to circa 2nd century B.C., has a section on 'Eluttu' (Script). There is a school of thought, however, which believes that the 'Elutlu', refers but to the Brāhmí script introduced by the Jainas. Whatever be the truth, the Jaina immigrants did use their own Tamil-Brāhmí script only, with certain modifications, to learn the new language, which they called 'Damila'. For teaching themselves the new language, they used their own 'Pallis' as their school campuses. That is why even today the only Tamil term most popular for a school is 'pallikkūdam'.!
17. Those who taught them and those whom they continued to teach in turn afterwards were the earliest Tamil Brāhmin settlers (Antanar) and the minstrels (pānar), besides a few of the leisurely intellectual classes. These Jaina schools became, in a few decades, the repositories of the literary output of the whole region. Since their learning had been at first confined to the grammatical, 1. The evolution of Pallikkūdam' is interesting. 'Palli' in Tamil means 'A
Sleeping Place' of a God or king. “Pallıyafar' is the special bedroom of a God in Hindu temples or of a king in palaces. 'Paļļikondan' (the sleeper) is a synonym of God Padmanabha lying in a trance (yoga-nidra) on the coils of a snake. Many of the oldest rock-caves of the Tamil Land had been either the ‘nishıdhıs' or the places of prayopaveśa' of Jaina hermits.