History and Doctrines of the Ajivikas: A Vanished Indian Religion c18.s2.5

c18.s2.5

In view of the Jaina tradition of the migration under Bhadrabāhu, and of the claim of Aśoka to have sent Buddhist missionaries to the Dravidian lands, we cannot accept the negative evidence of the anthologies as proof of a late penetration of heterodoxy into the Tamil country. The Bhaṭṭiprolu Casket, of the end of the second century B.C.,⁵ indicates that Buddhists existed in the Āndhra country at this date, and it would be rash to claim that there were none further south. As we have already suggested, it is probable that the heterodox sects began their southward expansion during the Maurya period. But at the time of the composition of the anthologies it may be assumed that they had made little impression upon the lives of the people in the districts south of the Kāviri, where most of the earliest Tamil literature was written.