Mahavira and his Teaching

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

Page 312

THE ASCENDENCY & ECLIPSE OF BHAGAVAN MAHAVIRA'S CULT 305
have been perhaps compensated to some extent by the quasihistorical material imbedded in the above-said literary pieces.
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21. Jaina scholars and poets seem to have had a lion's share in the development of this literature. But, being monks, their tributions were mostly in the field of ethics and didactics. With but a few exceptions, confined mainly to musical compositions, the whole of the Sangham literature seems to have been secular. Presumably, they had a healthy convention not to indulge in religious controversies. It is, therefore, very difficult to find out the religious persuasions of hundreds of these poets.
22.
Nevertheless, from these secular masterpieces, which must have undoubtedly represented the spirit of the times, we are able to surmise that it must have been an epoch of Jaina Idealism pervading the atmosphere of the land, irrespective of caste or creed and uncontaminated by even political forces. This was the age when Ko-p-perum-Colan, a Chola monarch, starved himself to death (performed prāyopaveśa) along with his courtiers and poet-friends, non-violently protesting against the fratricidal war between his two sons for the possession of his throne. This was the age when Kapila, a sage-poet, immolated himself into a fire to be re-born as a friend of his dead patron, Pari, who had fallen bravely in a battle of self-defence against aggression. This was also the epoch, when the said chieftain, Pāri, had shown pity and solicitude towards a wayside Jassmine Creeper (mullai), which was about to be uprooted by a violent cyclone, by driving his chariot towards it and, after helping it to wind round the wheels, walked on to his palace in that selfsame weather. Another chieftain, Pekan, is reported to have been so kind to a stray peacock, found deserted in the woods, shivering with cold, that he took out his very costly imported shawl with which he had been covering his bare body, and, after covering the helpless bird with it, returned to his palace bare-bodied in that severe weather.
23. There were, however, a number of Tamil poets, whose general outlook had been universal, but did not care to hide their M.M.-39
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