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MEDIÆVAL JAINISM that the Drāvida sangha was established in Madura by Vajranandi. This piece of information is interesting, since it furnishes an additional detail concerning the famous sanghas established in Karnāțaka and the south. The division of the original (Śrī Mūla) sangha, which was attached to the lineage of Kondakunda, into the four famous branches of Deva, Nandi, Simha, and Sena was, according to the inscription dated A.D. 1398, the work of Ardhabali, who didi so in order to minimize the hatred and other evils that might arise owing to the nature of the times. He is mentioned in the same record as having come after Gunabhadra, the disciple of Jinasenācārya. A later record dated A.D. 1432 mercly states that the division of the original sangha took place after the death of Akalanka.?
The institution of the Drāvida sangha was, we may presume, in honour of the Tamil people among whom Jainism must have made considerable progress since the time of Samantabhadra. That is to say, the Drāvida gana, which, according to Devasena, was established by Pūjypāda, and of which that celebrated grammarian was the first ācārya,4 must have had, in the course of the four or five centuries from Pūiyapāda to Vajranandi, such an enormous following that the latter Jaina preceptor sound it advisable to raise it to the dignity of a sangha. Whatever that may be, the identity of Vajranandi deserves some notice. The inscription dated A.D. 1129 referred to above, places Vajranandi immediately after
1. Devasena, Darśanasāra, p. 24, referred to by Upadhye, Pravacanasāra, Intr. p. xxi. On the date of Darśanasāra, read Hiralal, op. cit., p. 652.
2. E. C. II. 254, pp. 109, 110. 3. Ibid, 258, p. 117. 4. Hiralal, ibid, p. xxx.
