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LITERATURE
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Jaina literature in various Prakrits, Apabhramsa, Sanskrit, several vernaculars of India, and in English, and some of the medieval literature is of considerable literary merit. Legends (purāṇas) were composed.... together with lengthy tales of the lives of the Tirthankaras, and other worthies of Jainism. Gnomic poetry is very plentiful. Commentarial literature was produced in very large quantities in Sanskrit, as well as manuals of doctine, and refutations of the views of other systems. Moreover, Jaina scholars wrote treatises on politics, mathematics and even poetics, giving their works a Jaina slant. The total of medieval Jaina literature is enormous, and is often more interesting and attractive than the canonical works."
In short, the gamut of Jaina literary activity through the ages amply testifies to the fact that the Jainas patronised with equal fervour almost all the languages prevalent in different parts of the country, and that they made use of all the literary style current in different periods, both in prose and poetry, even inventing some new ones. They did not hesitate to borrow, adopt or adapt what they thought was best in non-Jaina classical literature. Epics in the form of purāņas and purāņic kavyas, didactic pieces, devotional poems and lyrics, tales and stories, fables and parables, dramas and romances, historical ballads and biographical sketches, novels and essays, allegories and satires, and so on, have been handled with success by the Jaina writers. Apart from their ontological, metaphyical, philosophical, ritualistic and other forms of religious literature, they wrote valuable works on logic and dialectics, ethics and politics, grammar and lexicon, poetics and prosody, yogic sciences and medicine including the veterinary, mathematics and astronomy, astrology and other occult arts.
Here and there we get useful technical information about music, both vocal and instrumental, painting, sculpture, architecture and
