Mahavira and his Teaching

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

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310 K. A. NILAKAŅȚA ŚĀSTRI & V. RĀMASUBRAMANIAM, 'AUNDY
well-known impartiality towards the three Tamil monarchs of his time. There is also a conscious attempt on the part of the author, or the authors, to be impartially cosmopolitan and pantheistic in religious outlook. 33. Our special interest in noticing this poem in extenso is due to its many references to the several active Jaina cultural centres and monasteries at various strategic localities of the Tamilian area. In spite of the author's attempts to remain cosmopolitan, the Jaina bias glistens through the poem. The Hindu hero and the heroine, have been made to circumambulate, besides a Hindu and a Buddhist shrine, an Asoka tree-platform, surrounded by an arhat temple, situated within the city of Pukār, before commencing their ill-fated journey to Madurai. Passing out through the city's outer gate, they are made to offer obeissance to one Kaundi Aờikaļ, a Jaina Nun, residing in a convent. And she, thereupon accompanies them to Madurai, on the outskirts of which was situated her own permanent convent. In another Jaina hermitage at Srirangam, near Trichināpaļļi, the above-mentioned nun is said to have met three Jaina 'caranas', who, after discoursing with her an aspct of Jaina philosophy, 'vanished into the air'. There is another situation in the poem, where the nun is made to expound Jaina doctrines. And the concluding 'benediction' too, spoken by the author himself, is a cent per cent Jaina 'Bharatavākya' though apparently universal in its outlook.1 34. Among the 75 Brāhmi Tamil Jaina inscriptions, noticed by us in para 14, there are two (see Appendix A and B, Mānkulam 1 and 2], which confirm the historicity of king Nequm-Celiyan of Madurai.
IV. The Pallava Pandya Imperialisms: 35. Chronology places the Pallava monarch, Mahendra Vikramavarman of Kāñcípuram, between circa A.D. 604 and 642.
We are deliberately retaining for more elaborate notice, in a later section, cosideration of the famous 'kunava yir-kottam of the Chera land, for special reasons.