________________
2 ANDHRA KARNATA JAINISM. to the revival of Vaidica Dharma. Its memorials come from well within the period of Buddhist influence under Asoka. Perhaps they are even tarlier. Whether latterday Buddhism shaded off into Jainism, or whether both Buddhism and Jainism were parallel and contemporary protests against Sacrificial Hinduism, originating in the Upanishadic reflections of the Rationalistic period of Hindu thought or whether Jainism was an original primitive Indian faith, of the North Indian forest homes and tribes, modified, deepened and intellectualised largely by association with, and on the analogy of, the Aryan philosophical, ethical and sociological speculation and organisation,--these are matters of controversy amongst famous Inde. logists. The view, however, adopted as the basis of the present studies is that Jainism in the Andhra dēsa, at least, was probably pre-Mauryan, that its influence, humanising and cultural, was working in these lands before the Asokan version of the gospel of Buddha reached them and that the prevalence of its characteristic doctrine of Ahimsa prepared the Andhras and Kalingas in a way for the favourable reception of the Buddhist doctrine promulgated by the Asokan Edicts and propagandists. Herein may be found an explanation of the peculiar note of sadness characteristic of the Asokan Edict dealing with the conquest of Kalinga and Asoka's sudden conversion to Buddhism and the definite adoption by him of a policy of
