Book Title: Mahavira and his Teaching
Author(s): C C Shah, Rishabhdas Ranka, Dalsukh Malvania
Publisher: Bhagwan Mahavir 2500th Nirvan Mahotsava Samiti
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334 K. A. NILAKAŅȚA ŚĀSTRI & V. RĀMASUBRAMAŅIAM, 'AUNDY shrine, on certain days of the year, (in Ašāda-māsa) lying down and rolling on without clothes, as digambaras! But animal sacrifices crept in when the people forgot the original identity of the deity they were worshipping. 90. At the Nāgarāja temple at Nagercoil, among the tens of thousands of votive Nāga stones, implanted within the precincts, there are about a dozen with the naked Pārsvanātha carved in his kā yotsarga posture. But the Hindu worshippers regard them as those of Ananta-Balakrşņa, without realising that there was no situation in Hindu purāṇic lore where the baby Krsna had to stand all naked on the coils of a multi-headed cobra. When Kaliya-Nāga was subdued, Krşņa was already a boy-cowherd with clothes on. In fact, he even objected to the practice of the Gopas and Gopis bathing naked. If the Nāga stone is to represent Adifesa, shielding baby Krishna from rain when crossing the Jamunā, it will not suit, because baby Krsņa was neither alone, nor was he standing, but was carried in his father's arms. When, however, the Nāgarāja temple came under the management of the Hindus, the convention of 'Nāga-Pratishthā' continued but the Balakrsna was carved naked with a ball of butter in each hand !1
91. The hymns of the Saiva and Vaišnava saints bristle with allusions to mythologycal and legendary episodes, and yet, paradoxically, all the ten Tamil epics of the classical epoch happen to be non-Hindu in authorship. In spite of the Hindu Statesupported activities of the Tamil sangham for more than five centuries before the Pallava epoch, Tamil Hindu literate seemed to have ignored the art of story-telling. They did not care even to preserve their older 'tonnar' ballads, such as 'Takadūr-yāttirai', 'Irānacharitai' and 'Pandavacharitai'. We have suggested the plausibility of the existence of a non-Jaina arche-type of 'Silappadhikāran'. But even that work seems to have been tempered with by Jaina, Buddhist and Hindu redactors of a later epoch. We have reason to 1. I have a family heirloom of such an Anathakrşņa in silver which is
being worshipped daily along with an Ananta-Śiva. (See Fig. 2).-V Rāmasubramaniam.
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