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CHAPTER II
THE SOCIAL, RELIGIOUS AND LITERARY BACKGROUND
In the previous chapter the question of the date of the Cc. has been discussed, In the following chapters, the interaction of Sanskrit in the Cc. from the point of view of the story, literary traditions, religion and language will be analysed. Before analysing these, there arises a need to consider the following factors in brief : (i) the political. social, religious and literary background in which the Cc. was written, and (ii) the historical development of the interaction of Sanskrit with Tamil literature before the period of the Cc. As the Cc. is a Jain epic (kavya), and the main motiva. tion of the poet to write this epic is the desire to propound Jaina religious doctrine, the developnient of Jaininism in Tamil land will be stressed while analysing the above two aspects.
The admixture of Aryan elements in Tamil land can be seen even in the Cankam poems the earliest Tamil literary works. Unlike in North India, where speakers of Indo-Aryan bad to fight and struggle to establish themselves, in South India their entry seems to have been peaceful. Even though the Tamils had a well established culture, a social structure, and literary traditions of their own, there began the steady and gradual infiltration of Aryan influence in the life of the Tamils. This influence, though it was not on anything like the large scale in which it is found in later periods, can be seen to have already begun in Cankam literature. There are poems in the Cankam anthologies which are ascribed to poets having Sanskrit names. Irācamāpikkanāri points to some authors of verses in the Narriņai whose names are of Sanskrit origin. For example, Câtevanār (Skt. Sāhadeva), Kapilan (Skt. Kapila), Ukkirapperuvaluti (Skt. Ugra + Tamil peru-valuti), Kācipan (Skt. Kaśyapa ), Tevan (Skş. Deva ), etc. Likewise he also quotes about thirty Sanskrit names among the poets who composed the Kuruntokai poems. For example, Uruttiran (Skt. Rudra ), Kulapati (Skt. Kulapati); etc. There are also Sanskrit names among the poets who composed the other Cankam anthologies.
Apart from the names of the poets, there are also references in the poems of Cankam literature, in which the names of the kings have titles in Sanskrit which indicate the sacrifices they performed. The names Pāoţiyan-pal-yāka-cālai-mutukuțumis (the Pandya who had many sacrificial halls ) and Irācacayam-vētta-perunark-killis 1 M. Irācamāņikkaņār, "Tamil moli ilakkiya varalaru' (History of Tamil Literature), Madras,
1961, p. 169. 2 M. Iracamāņikkaņār, op. cit. p 164. 3 Pur ananūtu, v. 64. 4 Ibid, v. 367.
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