Mahavira and his Teaching

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

Page 338

THE ASCENDENCY & ECLIPSE OF BHAGAVĀN MAHĀVĪRA’S CULT 331 Nāyanār, singing and preaching Saivite mysticism, the Jaina church was overwhelmed. And what finally clinched the issue in favour of Hindu ascendency was this Chera Emperor's initiative in establishing, in the Hindu Temples within his territory, what were called 'salais' and 'oottuppuras' (religious schools and free feeding houses) to feed sumptuously day and night all Brāhmins and all non-Brāhmin temple-employees and perpetuating the practice by suitable land and other grants. His successors too continued the practice, covering one by one all the major and minor temples of the Chera land. This charity-technique not only effectively stopped the inflow of new recruits to the Jaina fold, but also induced many hundreds of the then Jaina Brāhmins and 'Pilļaika! to 'cross the floor', as 'defectors'.
83. Non-violent social pressures too might have worked actively to make the Jaina church inert. We have stated in an earlier context that the famous Kuņavāyir koţtam itself had gone somehow into the possession of two Nāyar families, which did not admit Brāhmins to see the sanctum sanctorum. Tradition says that, following a dispute between the Nambūdhiri Brāhmin elders (ūrār) or Iriñjalakkuda, a neighbouring village, and the abovesaid trustees, the former began the age-old form of satyāgraha, called 'pattini (indefinite fast) for the downfall of their enemies, and that the ruin of the ‘kottam' itself was accomplished in forty days! ['Raszka Ranjini', Book II, quoted by M. G. S. Nārāyanan in his paper on 'Kunavā yir-kottam']
84. Another great political event too, which occurred about a century after Cheramān Peruma!, helped to further the revival of neo-Hinduism. The great Choļa emperors, beginning from Rāja-Rāja I, conquerred the Ayis, the Pāņdyas and the Cheras of Vañchi. The successors of Cheramān Perumal, who extended the system of ūţtuppuras to almost all the Keraļa temples, were able to absorb thereby the Jaina-Brāhmins and other temple employees only, and not the more numerous Tamiļian non-Brāhmin reconverts to Hinduism. By including the study of the Tami! hymns of the great Šaiva-Samayācāryas and the Vaisnava Alwārs