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CRITICAL TIMES
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weapon of the Jainas as expressed in their well known giftsāhāra-abhaya-bhaişajya-śāstra-dāna, by adopting the same policy to meet their own ends. This is proved by the stories of the saiva saints Iļeyāņdakuļimāranāyanār, Mūkhanayanār, and very many others. Secondly, the Saiva saints discarded caste system, in imitation of the Jainas, and recruited into their fold people of the lower social grades. This accounts for the inclusion of the fisherman saint Atibhaktanāyanār in the list of the sixty-three saints. Thirdly, the Saiva saints aimed at the highest altruistic principles, also in imitation of the Jainas.3 Fourthly, the Saiva saints composed hymns in honour of the local deities, and especially of Siva, obviously after the manner of the Jainas, who worshipped their Tirthankaras in their basadis. Fifthly, the Saiva saints instituted the hierarchy of sixty-three saints exactly as the Jainas had done with their sixty-three personages called Trişaşți-Salāka-puruşuas. And, finally, the Saivas secured the political patronage of the State by winning over the good grace of kings, precisely as the Jainas had done in the early periods of their history.
And in this campaign of exterminating the Jainas the lcading part was taken by Pille Nāyanār, better known by his name Tirujñānasambandhar Mūrti Nāyanár. A few details in connection with this celebrated figure are essential for fixing chronologically the downfall of the Jainas in the Tamil country. These details are gathered mostly from the well known Periyapurāņam or the Tiruttoņdarpurāna, composed
1. Dr. Shama Sastry was the first to draw attention to this. M.A.R. for 1925, p. 10.
2. Ibid, p. 9, 10. 3. Ibid, p. 11. 4. Ibid, p. 6.
