Jaina treasure trove in Mankulam village

CHENNAI: The ruins of two Jaina prayer halls (Chaitya grahas), belonging to the Tamil Sangam age and estimated to be about 2,200 years old, have been excavated atop a hill near Mankulam village, about 20 km from Madurai, Tamil Nadu. The ruins are adjacent to two of the five caves that have the earliest Tamil-Brahmi inscriptions in Tamil Nadu. The caves have several beds hewn out of the rock-floor, where the Jaina monks rested.

The Tamil Nadu Archaeology Department excavated the ruins of the prayer halls in 2007. The excavation yielded large-sized bricks, grooved tiles with holes, black and red potsherds and L-shaped iron nails. The Department has published a book on this excavation.

V. Vedachalam, retired senior epigraphist, Tamil Nadu Archaeology Department, estimated that these halls were “the earliest Jaina brick structures in Tamil Nadu.” He asserted, “No brick structure of this kind has been found in any Jaina site in Tamil Nadu.” The monks, who lived in the nearby caves, must have prayed in these chaitya grahas, which could have had an auspicious symbol or a cult object, he said.

The foundation and walls of the halls were built of bricks, which measured 35 cm x 17 cm x 6 cm. The roof was made of wooden rafters with grooved tiles that were held in place on the rafters by the L-shaped iron nails driven through the tiles.

These structures were similar to those found at the Udayagiri and Khandagiri hills, near Bhubaneswar, Orissa, which were important Jaina centres, said Dr. Vedachalam.

In 1882, Robert Sewell, civil servant and antiquarian, first noticed a few inscriptions on the brow of the caves on the Mankulam hill, near Meenakshipuram. Epigraphists V. Venkayya and H. Krishna Sastry tried to read them. Attempts to decipher them bore no fruit until K.V. Subrahmanya Aiyer, who pioneered the reading of the Tamil-Brahmi script, recognised them as having been inscribed in Brahmi. He concluded, in 1924, that the script’s language was Tamil. Others who contributed to the decipherment of the Tamil-Brahmi inscriptions found in Tamil Nadu included T.N. Subrahmanian, Iravatham Mahadevan, Dr. R. Nagaswamy and Dr. Y. Subbarayalu.

On the Mankulam hill, there are five caves, with six Tamil-Brahmi inscriptions in four of them. They belong to the 2nd century B.C. The long inscription found on the brow of the rock, close to the first Jaina prayer hall, gives details of how the Pandya king Nedunchezhiyan was instrumental in sculpting the beds in the cave as “dhammam” for the chief Jaina monk “Kani Nandan.” Another inscription is about “Sadikan,” father of Nedunchezhiyan’s brother-in-law, sculpting the beds for Kani Nandan.

Dr. Vedachalam said: “Mankulam was a great Jaina centre. It must have been the largest Jaina centre in Tamil Nadu during the Sangam age. The existence of the chaitya grahas, Tamil-Brahmi inscriptions and the Jaina beds [together in one place] are of national importance.”

Today, the Jaina beds have been desecrated with graffiti incised on them or painted in different colours.

11th century Jain statue found

Kshitiz Gaur,TNN

AJMER: A medium-sized black stone statue of 17th Jain Tirth-ankar Kuntunath, dating back to 11th century, has emerged during excavations in holy town of Pushkar, about 15 kms from here.

The statue is one of the more than 36 statues found in last one year at old Pushkar and Ghat areas of the region. The discoveries con-firms of a religious congregation being held at the place some time in the medieval period.

Eighteen more such statues have been discovered in old Pushkar alone, including a Shivling of nearly one thousand year old, rare statue of god Kartikeya, statue of Vishnu and more Jain Tirthankar statues.

The statue of Jain Tirthankar Kuntunath in a meditating posture appeared when renovation work was going on at the famous Varaha temple in Pushkar. It bears characteristics of Jain architecture - curly hair, sharp features on face, etc. The style of meditation is also peculiar of Jain philosophy.

The statues have been kept in the government museum at Akbar Fort in Ajmer. Archaeologists and historians are studying different perspectives of new scripts of Chouhan dynasty of 11th century.

Two months ago, more than 20 statues were found during construction work on a personal land near Jat Vishramsthali behind the famous Bramha temple. The work containing scriptures in Ingal and Pingal, local dialects spoken during 10th century, and representing the meditation postures, dates between 6th and 11th centuries.

"These new discovery shows that Jainism flourished well at the time of Hindu ruler Prithvi Raj Chouhan,"said Akbar Fort museum superintendent Syeed Ajam Hussein. "Pushkar has the importance of multi-religious studies. The statues are in very good condition,"he said, adding that the statues bear pure art of Jain sculptures and therefore have significance for the scholars and archaeologists.

About 8 years ago, a metallic statue pertaining to Jain religion was also found in the area which dated back to more than two thousand years. "The period is important because that was the time when the region was ruled by Hindu kings, and Ghajnis invaded the land,"added Ajam.

"Pushkar is an ancient city and clues are there that Vikramaditya of 6th century had studied in Pushkar. The land has more treasure dug under it,"said a Pushkar-based archaeologist Rajendra Yagnik. "More than 4 times, the university at Pushkar was ruined by the invaders. This university was unique with Samkhya, Yoga and Jain philosophies being taught there,"he said, adding, "A group of Italian archaeologists also visited the place and gathered information of scriptures found here."

Why We Get Ignored? (I)

Most of the people, including writers, journalists, teachers, historians, publishers, film & T.V. serial producers, and even Government bodies and politicians like to ignore Jains and Jainism. They do not like to speak and write anything about us and our religion.

What are the reasons behind this? Who are responsible for it?

Until now I had been thinking that it was happening because of their lack of knowledge about Jainism and some jealousy about Jains. But now I have realized that these two reasons are not the only or main reasons of ignorance. The major reasons are from Jain side for which Jains are solely responsible.

Now let me discuss about the first reason from Jain side. After your comments on it, I will mail other reasons by next mails.

The Number Counts!

In democracy, or in any other field, the number is very important. If we are in ignorable number, why should one care about us and our religion? Even the speakers in ‘All Religion Meet’ will not speak about Jainism if there is no Jain representative on stage or in the meet.

If we are less than 0.4% (Not even half a percent!), we can not expect from others to speak and write about our great religion.

Suppose we were 4% instead of 0.4% in the total population of India. The entire scenario would be like this:

Jain community will be a major political force of India. At least 40 MPs (Member of Parliament) and 5 -6 Ministers will be from our community. Nation can see a Jain President or a Jain Prime Minister. The Chief Ministers of many states, with many other ministers will be from Jain community.

This will affect all the things in entire India. No one will ignore us.

Further, there will be more writers, journalist, IAS and IPS officers, teachers, historians, publishers, film & T.V. serial producers from Jain community. This will give a lot of exposure to our religion.

Today many Jains behave like Hindus, but in above conditions Hindus will behave like Jains.

In such condition, Jainism will spread automatically. We can use our force for upliftment of downtrodden people. We can make millions of people vegetarians. We can minimize the number of slaughter houses. We can abolish poverty from India.

Is it possible?

But is it possible for us to be 4% in Indian population?

Yes, it is possible. We can grow in numbers, but only if we wish and work in that direction. We do not have to produce more children for it.

The only way is to convert others to Jainism. Lot of people wish to adopt Jainism, but we have closed our doors. We have to open them.

There is a community named Gounder in south India. They were Jains in Past. They know it and proud fully accept this. There number is over FIVE MILLIONS! (That is more than our population). And there are lot of such big communities who were Jains in past.

We will have to reconvert all the non Jains to Jainism, who were Jains in past and were forcefully converted to other religions.

What do you think?

M.S. Chavan
http://jainblogs.tripod.com/