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Studies in Jainology, Prakrit
155
Bhadrabahu 1 and accompanied by his royal disciple Candragupta, that entered Karnataka region in 300 B.C., firmly established its first colony at Kalbappu, the modern Śravanabelgola, and, then, conveyed and radiated therefrom those teachings more effectively and extensively to the nearby and deeper southern regions. Thus Karnataka can be said to have been rather the Southern Head Quarters of this great faith in the early days. Then assuming further strength, later in the medieval period, it became the very "home of Jina-dharma” as history would announce through the well known Kuppatūra Stone Inscription dated A.D.1408 (Epigraphia Carnatica, Vol. VIII, Sh.261). Perhaps taking all this in view, Dr.Saletore seems to have observed in his Medicaval Jainism: “The history of Jainism in South India is primarily the history of that religion in Karnataka.”
Hence it is but natural that the contribution of Jainism to the culture of Karnataka, indeed as a constituent part of its contribution to Indian culture in general, could be not only manifold but also of abiding value. Even the outstanding glimpses of such contribution would thrill every one of us with joy as well as pride:
It was a virtue and practical attitude of the Jaina teachers that wherever they moved and settled down, they adopted the language of the soil, cultivated it and used it for preaching and propogating their religious and spiritual tenets among the people of the region. This has been exactly true also of the Jaina teachers, settling at the Śravanabelgola colony, in respect of the Kannada language. They, with Prakrit as their own language, within years must have learnt the Kannada language, and gradually cultivated and improved it so as to suit for their preaching, teaching and, later on, for composing literary works in it. Most of the so-called tadbhava words in the Kannada language are none else but Prakrit words and words derived from Prakrit, lent by those and later other teachers in the course of their newly introducing religious, philosophic and dogmatic concepts, ideas etc. Some of the early Kannada inscriptions, literary works and after all the Apahramsa
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