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A chapter on Jainism is relevant to this thesis as Jainism provided an important channel for the interplay of Sanskritic elements with features characteristic of Tamil in the Cc. But the question immediately arises whether it is possilbe to detect a similar interaction of Sanskrit on all Jaina works in Tamil. If not, how does the Cc. differ from the other works in this respect? For that one may ask why the references to Jainism in the Cc. cannot be traced back to the earlier Jain works in Tamil. In other words is it necessary to invoke the interaction of Sanskrit works with the Cc. at all?
CHAPTER V
THE INTERACTION OF SANSKRIT THROUGH JAINISM
The literary endeavours of Jains in Tamil date back to the post Cankam period. Among the Patinepkilkkapakku works (eighteen minor poems) the Nalatiyar, the Elati, the Cirupancamalam and the Tipaimalai-nurraimpatu were composed by Jain authors. These works are mainly didactic in nature and deal with rules of good conduct and the transience of material objects and worldly existence. They presumably had a moral purpose i.e. of guiding people and evolving serial conventions. We also find Jain references in the Cilappatikaram and the Perupkatai. In spite of the references to the Jain religious practices etc. found in Cilappatikaram, it was not written primarily as a religious work. The Perupkatai though written by the Jaina author Konkuvējir, contains only a few references to Jainiam and there is no detailed exposition of religious ideas. The Cc. differs from all these earlier poems both by virtue of the period in which it was composed and its subject-matter. It was a time during which Tamil and Sanskrit enjoyed equal importance and the Jains were engaged in religious propaganda. One of their principal means of doing this was through literary works which contained Jain doctrines borrowed freely from works in Sanskrit and Prakrit. The Cc. stands foremost among works of this kind. It can be stated without hesitation that it is a Jain religious work garbed in Kavya form. It contains the whole body of Jain philosophy, especially in the Muttiyilampakam. To understand these ideas of Jainism as related in the Cc. a knowledge of the earlier Jain works in Tamil and Jain traditions in Tamil land alone is not adequate. It is here that the ideas have to be traced back to sources in Sanskrit and Prakrit.
In some places Tevar has derived his inspiration from the earlier Jain works in Tamil which deal mainly with Jain ethical ideas. For example in the stanza,
1
Cc. v. 1583.
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