The Colas c33.42

c33.42

Buddhism does not seem to figure as much in the epigraphy of the period as Jainism. The celebrated Leyden grant indeed records the gift of a whole village to the Bauddha *Vihāra* of Cūḍāmaṇi-Varmadēva in Negapatam, and this grant was supplemented by a fresh gift in the reign of Kulōttunga I, on a representation made by the king of Kaḍāram through his ambassadors. And the Vaiṣṇava legends have preserved a curious story of Tirumaṅgai Āḻvār having despoiled the Bauddha *Vihāra* of Negapatam of a solid golden image of the Buddha in order to find the funds required for building the great Ranganātha temple at Śrīraṅgam; possibly this legend only means that at the time the lives of the Āḻvārs were put together, in the twelfth century a.d., Negapatam was still a strong centre of Buddhism which attracted popular attention by its wealth and influence. Some relics of Buddhism have been traced in Kāñcīpuram⁹⁹ and it is quite possible that Kāñcīpuram which was one of the great centres of Hinduism and Jainism also accommodated a Buddhist colony in these days. Śrī Mūlavāsam in Malabar, on almost the same latitude as Negapatam on the opposite coast, was another well known centre of Buddhism whose influence was felt from very early times in places as far from it as Gandhāra.¹⁰⁰ A more systematic search for Buddhist antiquities in Southern India than has yet been undertaken may reveal other centres of that religion not now known to us. Buddhist writers also contributed to the growth of Tamil Literature, though not to the same extent as Jains. All the same, epigraphy and literature alike produce the impression that in the tenth and eleventh centuries of the Christian era, Buddhism was less popular in the Tamil country than Jainism, and it seems probable that in the religious controversies of the preceding age, Buddhism suffered more damage and lost its hold on the people of the country more completely than Jainism.