Jainism and Tamil

Jainism has a long history in the Tamil country. The Jains had a significant role in the formation of the Tamil script, including their great literary contribution. Despite this, most people were unaware of the presence of Tamil Jains and their connection to Tamil history. Many assumed, for instance, that Jainism and Buddhism were one and the same. To allay this confusion and ignorance, Mayilai Seeni Venkatasamy published Samanamum Tamilum (Jainism and Tamil) in 1954. The book is one of the earliest accounts introducing and explicating Jain philosophy, ethics, and doctrine to the modern Tamil reader. It traces Jainism’s arrival to the Tamil region, its growth, and its eventual fall with the concurrent emergence of the Bhakti movement. It talks of the persecution of Jains and their forced conversions to the Hindu faith, and Hinduism’s appropriations of Jain myths, festivals, and doctrines. Drawing from a variety of sources, including literature, inscription, sculpture, and temple architecture that has survived, perished, or metamorphosed into Hindu shrines, Venkatasamy resurrects the lost and largely forgotten Jain past of the Tamil country.

This English translation makes the work available to a global readership, inviting new perspectives on this two-thousand-year-old literary, cultural, and religious tradition, and its people. It hopes to inspire similar interrogations into various regional iterations of Jainism from other parts of the subcontinent, shedding light on how Jainism - or any religion, for that matter - gets localized and develops distinctive idioms in different socio-cultural landscapes.

Mayilai Seeni Venkatasamy (1900-1980) was a prominent Tamil scholar known for his interdisciplinary research in history, literature, and religion. Some of his renowned works are Christhavamum Tamizhum (Christianity and Tamil; 1936) Samanamum Tamizhum (Jainism and Tamil; 1954), Bouthamum Tamizhum (Buddhism and Tamil; 1940), Pathonbatham Nootrandil Tamil Ilakkiyam (Tamil Literature in the Nineteenth Century; 1962), and Kalapirar Aatchiyil Thamizhagam (Tamil Country under the reign of the Kalabhras; 1976). In honour of his contributions to Tamil Studies, the Tamil Nadu government nationalised his works in 2000.

Darun Subramanian is Ph.D. student in the Department of Cultural Studies, EFLU, Hyderabad, India. His research interests include Tamil and Global Modernisms, Translation Studies, Postcolonial Print Cultures, and Intellectual History. He was a South Asia Speaks Fellow (2022) for translation and a Sahapedia-UNESCO Fellow (2020). His writings have appeared in Sahapedia, and he is a contributor to the volume Global Modernists on Modernism: An Anthology (2020).

Arun Prakash Raj N is Ph.D. student in School of Liberal Studies, Ambedkar University, Delhi, India. His research interests include Religious History, Public History, Social Movements and Print Cultures. He has successfully completed Sahapedia UNESCO Fellowship in 2019 on the Buddhist and Jain traditions in Tamil region. His writings have appeared in Tamil magazines like Neelam and Kanaiyazhi. He is the co-founder of Pagir - A Cultural Forum.