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MEDIEVAL JAINISM
the cause of Jainism was a grcat blow to that rcligion. With the simultaneous collapse of the Rāşțrakūta and Ganga kingdoms towards the end of the tenth century A.D., Jainism received a shock from the effects of which it never recovered. Secondly, the indifference of the Jaina leaders to the revivals of Hinduism, especially to that form called Vira saivism, was detrimental to the interests of the Jaina faith. The work of reviving this particular form of Saivism fell to the lot of the great Basava, who rekindled in the middle of the twelfth century A.D. the Saivācāra or Jangama faith which was a revolt against Brahmanism. Jainism failed to produce teachers who could understand the full import of this new religious revival the champions of which did for Karnāțaka what the Nāyanārs had done for the Tamil land.
This profoundly affected the life of the anekāntamata, as is evident from the next cause relating to the conversion of the feudatory families from Jainism into Vīra saivism. Basava's violent methods of winning a prominent place for the Saiyācāra,? were less successful than the peaceful policy adopted by his successors, who converted the śāntaras, the Cangāļvas, the Bhairava Oļeyars of Kārkaļa, the kings of Coorg, and other rulers of the minor states from Jainism into Vira Saivism.*
How these royal personages and feudatorics were converted into Vīra saivism is best illustrated by the account of the famous Vira Saiva teacher Ekānta Rāmayya about whom Keśirāja Camūpa relates thus in a stone record dated about A.D. 1195 :
1. Rice, My. & Coorg, p. 72. 2. Ibid, p. 206. 3. Ibid, pp. 79-80. 4. Ibid. pp. 139; 206-207; E. C. IX Intr. p. 20.
