The Colas c34.6

c34.6

The *Śīvaka-Śindāmaṇi* of the Jain poet Tiruttakkadēva is counted as the greatest among the *mahā-kāvyas* of Tamil literature. As it is seen to follow the *Kṣattracūḍāmaṇi* of Vādībhasimha, itself based on the *Uttarapurāṇa* of Guṇabhadra composed in A.D. 898,¹⁰ there can be little doubt that the *Śindāmaṇi* was composed some-time in the tenth century.¹¹ Naccinārkkiniyar states that the author was born of the race of the Cōḷas.¹² A later tradition cherished by Tamil Jains adds that after a full course of study in Tamil and Sanskrit, he turned an ascetic at a rela-tively early age and went to Madura to live there for some time in the company of the great poets of the Tamil Śaṅgam. While admitting the distinction earned by Jain writers in the line of religious and holy literature, these poets challenged their capacity in general, and that of Tiruttakkadēvar in par-ticular, to contribute to the literature of Love. The ascetic poet took up the challenge, and having satisfied his *guru* that he would not lose his spiritual balance if he was permitted to produce an erotic poem, he composed the big poem on the life of Jīvakan, the subject prescribed by his master. The result pleased the *guru*; but it did not give the quietus to the critics of the Śaṅgam, who, unable to deny the merits of the poem, now raised a suspicion against the character of its author, saying that one who had no experience of sex-life could not have produced it; Tiruttakkadēvar then demon-strated the purity of his devotion to the ascetic ideal by means of an ordeal. We may not accept these tales as history, especially because there is nothing in the poem of Tiruttak-kadēvar that cannot be explained on the simple supposition that the Jain poet wanted to set forth in Tamil one of the most romantic and edifying cycles of tales preserved in the Purāṇas of the Jainas.