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CHAPTER 1.
PRELIMINARY REMARKS
Importance and nature of the subject - Introduction of Jainism into south and west India.
THE history of mediæval Jainism in southern and western 1 India, especially in the famous Empire of Vijayanagara, can be best understood only when it is studied in relation to the activities of its votaries in the ages preceding the rise of the sons of Sangama. It is essentially the history of a sect which having sought shelter in Karnāțaka from a grave calamity that had overtaken it in its own home in the north, rose to unrivalled brilliance in the land of its adoption not only in the fields of letters, arts, and religion but in the domain of politics as well. At the hands of writers on Indian history, however, the influence which this profound faith cast in the south has not received the attention it has deserved.1 Indeed, it may be said
1. One finds little about this subject in most of the modern works dealing with the history and religions of India. The Cambridge History of India, I, for example, has only a few lines on this question : pp. 166-167. Other writers like Glasenapp, Der Jainismus, and C. Hayavadana Rao, Mysore Gazetteer (revised edition, Bangalore), have nothing more than the few well known facts to relate.
