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MEDIEVAL JAINISM
known to Jaina history was Ajitasena, who was the contemporary of Vadirāja, Camunda Raya, and the Western Calukyan ruler Someśvara I. We have assigned Vādībhasimha Ajitasena to the last quarter of the tenth and the first quarter of the eleventh century A.D. If Vādībhasimha of the Tiruttonḍar tradition is identical with Ajitasena Vādibhasimha, then, the great Saiva contemporary of that Jaina teacher, Tirujñānasambandhar, has to be assigned also to the last quarter of the tenth and the beginning of the eleventh century A.D. This would mean that Tirujñānasambandhar lived one century after Vajranandi ; and that it was during the last quarter of the tenth and the first quarter of the eleventh century A.D. that Jainism in the Tamil land received its death-blow at the hands of the great Tamil saint.1
Whether this is acceptable to orthodox Tamil opinion or not, it seems certain that, while Tirujñānasambandhar was actively engaged in wiping out Jainism from Madura, Tirunavukkarasar, or Vāgīśa, or Dharmasena, or more popularly known as Appar, another renowned contemporary of Tirujñānasambandhar, was busy uprooting the anekantamata in the Pallava kingdom; and the Vaisnava saint Tirumangai Alvar sang terrible invectives against it in Alinaḍu in the
1. It is said that the Tēvāram (or Devaram) hymns contain many details of the Jaina ascetics on the eight hills surrounding Madura, such as Anamali, Pasumalai, etc, (Ramaswami, Studies., p. 68). It is precisely here at Anamali, etc, in the district of Madura and its neighbourhood that, as related above, stone inscriptions in the Vatteluttu characters have been found dealing with the Jaina sages and their disciples. These inscriptions while confirming the existence of the Jainas in Madura in the tenth and cleventh century A.D., incidentally prove that the Tēvāram itself was written in that age.
