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RELIGION & CULTURE OF THE JAINS
According to V.P. Pillai, the true messengers of culture and learning in the Tamil region were the Jaina monks, and K.S, Srinivasan thinks, "It is not a mere accident that the best literature, known as the Sangama literature, of the ancient Tamil country was the creation of the Jaina scholars." Yet another scholar says, "The classical dignity and literary refinement which the Tamil and Kannada languages have reached are entirely due to the pioneer work of Jaina authors in the field, Jainism being a religion of pre-eminently humanitarian values, the Jaina authors have left behind a noble heritage for the benefit of mankind through their literary productions." R.W. Frazer pointed out, "It was through the fostering care of the Jainas, that the south first seems to have been inspired with new ideals, and its literature enriched with new forms of expression." And, the great Dravidian scholar Dr. Pope said, "Jaina compositions were clever, pointed, elegant, full of satire, of worldly wisdom, epigrammatic but not religious.” Lastly to quote Dr. Buhler, "In the south of India where they (the Jainas) have worked among the Dravidian peoples, they have also promoted the development of these languages. The Canarese, Tamil and Telugu literary languages rest on the foundations created by the Jaina monks". About the 13th-14th century A.D., regional languages, which have gradually developed into modern vernaculars like Hindi, Rajasthani, Gujarati, Marathi, Panjabi, Sindhi and Bengali, had begun emerging from the corresponding shades of the Apabhramsa language as prevailing in different parts of the country. As a matter of fact, originally it was one Desī-bhāṣā which the Muslims called Hindvi or Hindi. It was split up into several regional dialects which, in the course of time, assumed distinct forms, viz., Bengali, Gujarati, Marathi, etc., its Muslim adoptation coming to be known as Urdu (lit. camp jargon).
