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THE EVIDENCE OF TRADITION. 5 the Nandas in combination with Kautilya is afforded by the evidence of the Kharavēla inscription noticed above as to the Jainå påtronage of those kings. On Kautilya himself, the Jaitia doctrine of Ahimsa made absolutely no impression. The point is proved by the fact that in the Sūnadhyaksha, a number of animals are exempted from slaughter (especially in the Abhayavanas) but meat diet was not taboced. For otherwise, Kautilya would not give rules 'regarding the sale of meat.
Aside from the fascination of this Disguise. antiquity of Andhra-Karnāta Jainism, there is the added charın of its disguise. To the student of Indian Antiquities nothing comes beaming with so much inspiration as the disguise that covers in tradition many a monument of this immemorial past, rich with its message that man lives not for power and pelf alone, that in fact his high destiny lies more in the conquests of the spirit and its dominance over what is merely “ of the earth, earthy.” It is a message of struggle, of travail, of sacrifice, of devoted consecration, and concentration, of high and noble achievement for the freedom of the body and the soul.
The momentoes of this struggle and achievement, of this power of the spirit and its decay are obscured in the annals of the Andhra mandala, so completely obscured even in its literature, that, but for the records of the tradition collected by the late Col. Mackenzie and
