Mahavira and his Teaching

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

Page 343

336 K. A. NILAKANȚA SASTRI & V. RĀMASUBRAMANIAM, 'AUNDY
Inine Nāradas and three others, incorporating within it a Jaina 'Ramā yana' and a Jaina 'Harivamśa'. Jinasena of the sixth century A.C. rewrote the whole mass of their 'kathā literature' as two epics, viz. 'the Mahāpurāna' and 'the Harivamśa'. What were highlighted in these chronicles were the 'victories' or the partial victories of these 63 personalities over their own lower selves. The victors were called 'Jinas'. But, as their achievements were happening within their own inner selves, invisible to mundane eyes, They were dubbed by their Saivite critics as ‘untrue' and 'mythical'. But as the miracles of Siva were said to have happened 'visibly', they were called “true biographies”. 95. One of the greatest, if not the greatest, pageants of Tamil Saivism was, and still is, the grand festival of the sixty-three (arupatti-mūvar-vilā), usually celebrated at Mylapore for ten days before the full moon of the month of Phālguna. On one of these days, the bronze images of all the 63 saints are taken in procession in 63 'vehicles' (vāhanas), borne on the shoulders of four to thirty-two men for each vāhana according to its weight and size, with all the paraphernalia of pomp and display. Almost all the prominent Siva temples of the Tamil area possess, not only a full set of these 69 bronzes, but also their consecrated irrenovable stone proto-typed (mülasthānas) within their inner sanctum sanctorum. Anapāya Kulottunga and his successors have liberally endowed these temples with enough funds for the celebration of the above festivals.
Sekkilar's 'Periya-purānam' was thus, not a mere imitation of the 'Mahāpurana' of the Jainas, but proved ultimately to be a tremendous machinery employed to take away the wind out of the sails of the ship of Jaina evangelism.
X. Conclusion 96. We do not dare to propound a prognosis.-But has the real cult of Bhagavan Mahāvīra vanished from the land of the 1. Instead of nine Nāradas etc. 12 cakravartis are included to make the
number 63 by the Jainas. Ed.