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Studies in Jainology, Prakrit
as the Tamil region is concerned, we may say that the Jainas were the real apostles of culture and learning.” - (History of Tamil Language and Literature).
All this can be seen reflected in the various Jaina monuments, relics, sculptures, inscriptions, literary works of high order, some institutions, cults, social customs and manners etc. available therein. Dr.P.B.Desai (in his Jainism in South India and Some Jaina Epigraphs), has lucidly shown that in Tamil Nadu several caverns, rocky beds and epigraphs have clear Jaina association of hoary antiquity. Moreover religious centres like Kanci, Madurā, Ponnūr, Sittannavāsal, Chittanur etc. bear great testimony to the past glories of Jainism. In Tinnavelly district Kalugūrumalai is rich in rock-cut Jaina sculptures. Some of the so called Pañca-pāndava Beds, carved out in rock in the hills and mountain regions in the Pudukkottai area were actually created for Jaina ascetics and monks who always preferred good natural surroundings. A hill in the Madurā district is known as Siddharamalai (Hill of Jaina Sages) even to this day. Moreover the Yakșini cult widely prevailent in the Tamil country in early and medieval period, and now found in some other garb or guise, is a creation of Jaina teachers to meet the religio-social needs of the days, by providing to their followers Jaina female deities like Ambikā, Siddhāyikā ctc., who could stand parallel to the Saivite and Vaisnavite deities like Parvati and Lakşmi etc., The idea and nomenclature of Sangam (Academy) in Jaina literature is rightly said to have been of Jaina inspiration ci., from Jaina Sangha and Mūla Sangha.
It is the realm of Tamil literature that conspicuously reveals the different aspects of Jaina contribution to the cultural life of its people. Jainas were the pioneers in the cultivation of Tamil language and enrichment of Tamil literature in its various branches : Inscripions, cpics, poetry, prosody, grammer, lexicography, mathematics, astrology etc. Some of the early Tamil inscriptions indicate the pioneering attempts of Jaina teachers at cultivating the language for literary purposes by formulating new terms like
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