Diffusion Pattern of Jainism and Its Art In South India

By Dr. K. V. Soundara Rajan

It is well known that the development of the credo advocated by Mahavira - which came to be called Jainism from Jina or Jita, the emancipated one - did not begin right from his own time but a couple of centuries after him. In the earliest phase of its establishment as a religion with its cannon and imagery ( mostly of Tirthankaras) it was centred in Madhyadesa, with two nuclei - one around Mathura in the Ganga-Yamuna doab of western Uttar Pradesh and the other around Patna in Bihar. The former had been a vigorous trade centre, lying as .it was on the cardinal trade route within India from Taxila in the Northwest, to Barygaza ( or modern Broach in south Gujarat) port, running via Ujjain. Since traders patronised the ascetics of Jainism as well as its art consistently from the very inception ( till modern times), Mathura was a nodal nucleus in upper India. The birth places traditionally ascribed to the 24 tirthankaras had, by and large, been located in Uttar Pradesh and Bihar, of which as many as four had been from Ayodhya or Saket ( Ajitanatha, Abhinandana, Sumatinatha and Anantanatha); three (Santinatha, Kunthunatha and Aranatha) from Hastinapura; two each from Varanasi and Mithila (Bihar). Thus, the Ganga valley became the primary home of Jainism, but the patronage of tradesman had taken this diffusing religion to Western India where, in Gujarat and Rajasthan, it built up a massive clientele in early to Mediaeval Times. Besides, with Ardhamagadhi as the canonical dialect, it was obvious that northern Bihar was in the vanguard of the growth of its metaphysical and canonical literature. This early phase (3rd century B.C. 2nd century A.D.) had been the jumping off stage for its spread to other zones; among which lower Southern India came to command the greatest historical, ritual and monumental significance. The first immigration in this regard is traditionally ascribed as under the leadership of Bhadrabahu, in the late Mauryan phase, through certain routes which steered clear alike of western Deccan of Maharashtra as of eastern Andhra coast, owing to these two being prolific zones of Buddhist concentration of religious edifices, rock-cut in the case of the former and marginally so but preponderantly of Stupa monds in plethoric numbers in thelatter region. Geographically and archaeologically, two features stand out regarding the pattern of the great dispersal from Jainism, from northern to Southern India. The first was that Jainism moved through the central inland routes and secondly, owing to the royal endeavours of Ashoka Maurya, in the proselytisation of BuddhIst tenets in his far flung empire and by the Satavahanas subsequently, who ruled over the best part of Southern India, early Digambara Jainism intuitively opted for reaching out to the farthest South in Tamilnadu, to create history there, even as domiciles.

During the Ashokan times, the empires was spread down to the river Krishna, further south of which, on his own statement, the independent chieftains of Chola, Pandya, Satiyaputra and Keralaputra clans were flourishing. Thus, the destination zone of the immigrant Jainism carved out a most distinctive 'secondary home' at the earliest phase to be noted anywhere In India, from 3rd-2nd century B.C. to 4th-5th century A.D., until the Pallavas of the Simhavishnu line and the early Pandyas of the Kadungon line rose to great fame with their own special filiations with Jainism, in coexlstance and frequent confrontation with Vedic religion. The earliest groups of monks occupied several hundreds of natural rock or cavern shelters on the peppery small hills of this deep southern Tamil land and received the ministrations of the local tradesmen whose services were also recorded in short inscribed records in what had come to be called early 'Tamil Brahmi' inscriptions ( for expounding and meticulously transcribing which meaningfully, I. Mahadevan has a major scholarly claim). Many of the rock shelters of the Jaina monks had springs and sculpted tirthankaras in relief on the boulder faces, in the periods subsequent to the first occupational phase Indicated earlier. They had also beds scooped on the Inner floor of the cave for the monks to rest- a 'dhamma' created by the trading gentry. Thus, Tamilnadu can legitimately claim to have offered the haven of hospitality and fostered these early Jaina ascetics, true to their own traditions of caring for the guests in their land.

The shifts to other parts of lower Southern India were, thus, to be subsequent to this early Tamilnadu matrix of Jaina culture; and Karnataka became the next outstanding zone where Jainism was to receive further cordial treatment and acquire pontifical growth under the Gangas of Kolar and Talakad when State patronage was also bestowed on the Jaina religion. Before we deal with the Karnataka chapter, one important offshoot of the early phase in Tamilnadu related to the Jaina presence and epigraphical date should be mentioned. It was the Tamil-Brahmi or what could be better termed as the 'Dravidi' script branching out from the Ashokan Brahml (used for various Prakrit Inscriptions) and which certainly should have commenced from at least the 3rd century B.C. In Andhradesa, It is signalled by the Bhattiprolu Buddhist relic casket record dated to 2nd century B.C. which is now taken by scholars of Tamil Brahmi as of a stage of development of the earlier Tamilnadu Jaina cavern records. In Karnataka, the syndrome begins from the Satavahana times, of the reign of Vasisthiputra Satakarni, as seen In his bilingual silver coins current both in Karnataka and Tamilnadu, datable, to- ­the 2nd century A.D. The Tamil script phonetically and alphabetically developed from this earliest branching of Dravidi from Ashokan Brahmi and consistently reflected in Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka in the prechristian and early historic phases, as noted above, going to show that Tamil language and script had the leadership among the developing stages of the Dravidian family of languages like Kannada and Telegu ( with Malayalam as a late beginner in its individuality of script and phonetics).

The Ganga period of Jaina patronage could be taken from c.5th century A. D. to about the 10th century A. D., close on heels of the early Tamilnadu chapter. The Ganga filiates in bilingual contexts had already been current in the western tracts of Tamilnadu called as Kongu nadu, with its early nodal centre around Dharmapuri (ancient Tagadur), ruled by the Atiyas in the Sangam period, overlapping with the later part of the earlier phase of Jainism in Tamilnadu. The great poetess Avvaiyar of Tamil literature who was a contemporary of Atiyaman Neduman Anji, the Atiya chieftain of about the 2nd century A. D. was indeed the product of this bilingual Kongu tract --as her name itself suggests, as meaning 'amma' in Tamil, for which the Kannada equivalent is 'avva'. Thus, in this second phase of shift which had spread from Tamilnadu to Karnataka ( while in the earlier Ashokan period, Karnataka had the concentration of the largest number of his royal records dealing with his Buddhist missionary activity that any single tract anywhere In India had yielded) Gangas had played a notable part in being the outstanding patrons of Jainism. The third phase of dispersal and concentration of Jaina centres was within the territory of Karnataka itself mostly, ( from c.1000 A.D. to c.16th century A.D.) and witnessed the Jaina religion well entrenched in the Karnataka soil with several dynasties of fame, like the Kadambas of Banavasi, chalukyas of Badami, Rashtrakutas of Malkhed (who were the most enlightened patrons of this faith), later Chalukyas of Kalyana (drawing their inspiration from the earlier Badami Chalukyas who had built such centres as the Sankha-Jinalayi'l at Lakshmesvar), feudatories like the Santaras of Patti­Pomburcha (Humcha), Alupas of the' coastal Kannada districts, looming large on the political and cultural horizon. In this third phase, owing to the continuous contentious political conflicts between the Kalyani Chalukyas and the Seuna- Yadava chieftains of Deogiri (modern Daulatabad) first and later continued between the latter and the Hoysalas of Dvarasamudra, a continuing cultural cross-fertilisation had also taken place, resulting in upper Deccan cultural impulses seeping into the lower Deccan Karnataka and Andhradesa, in so far as Jaina faith and art went, as seen in the Bhumija style of upper Indian temple form found at Tumbalam in Adoni taluk of Anantapur district of Andhradesa, bordering on Karnataka, for the Jaina religion. In the first half of this third phase which was the final phase for Jaina movements in South India, Tamilnadu had continued its earlier fostering care of Jainism in important old and new centres, as bronzes from them show (between 10th and 13th century A.D.)

Jainism in Karnataka had its chief sculptural mascot in Bahubali or Gommatesvara, as uniquely displayed at Sravanbelgola and Karkala, but it must be said that in Tamilnadu, In the entire period of c. 2nd century B.C. to 10th century A, D. despite many Jaina carvings in stone and bronzes, of several tirthankaras, Yakshas, Yakshls etc" no Gommata sculpture had been known ( even though In the coeval period In Karnataka, Chalukyas and Rashtrakuta monuments, of both the rock-cut and structural types, had yielded several ,examples of the Gommatesvara sculpture, This aspect has not been satisfactorily studied or explained yet, Architecturally however, Karnataka holds the palm In having finest monuments for Jainism In the whole period of the second and third phases of Jaina movements In South India, and closely related In architectural style to Tamilnadu Vimana category.

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Author : By Dr. K. V. Soundara Rajan, 87/6, Vasantha Apartments, M. K. Amman Koil Street, Mylopore, Dadras-4

Article Source : Book "Rishabh Saurabh" Published on the occasion of Seminar on
"Jaina Heritage of Karnataka, held at Bangalore ( Organised By Rishabh Dev Foundation , Delhi ) on 4th & 5th April 1994"

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