Samanar Hills – Inscriptions
Archaeologists
have also found 2000-year-old Tamil-Brahmi inscriptions and Vatteluthu writings. The inscriptions reveal that
hundreds of Jain monks took sallekena (fast unto death) there. There are flat
rocks, called stone beds, used by the monks to take rest. The findings through
the Tamil and Kannada inscriptions show that there was a Jain monastery
at the top of the hill known as Maadevi Perumpalli. Maadevi
Perumpalli was an educational academy in which both Jain monks and nuns studied.
The kings from the Pandyan
Dynasty, who ruled Madurai, visited the
academy. The Kannada students and senior monks from Shravanabelagola also stayed there.
A
Tamil-Brahmi inscription that pushes back the association of Samana Malai
(Jaina Hill), with Jainism to 2,200 years, has been discovered on the hill.
Although scholars in Jainism in Tamil Nadu know the existence of bas-relief
sculptures of Tirthankaras and Tamil Vatteluthu inscriptions on the Samana
Malai, both datable to 9th-10th century CE, what has surprised them is the
recent discovery of the Tamil-Brahmi script on a boulder on the hill's terrace.
The script is engraved on the boulder in which a drip-ledge has been cut and
beds excavated on the rock floor for the Jaina monks to rest.
The
script, which is datable to second century BCE, has 13 letters. Different
interpretations of the newly found script have been given by specialists in
Tamil-Brahmi. The Inscription has been read as “Peru Thorur Kunra Ko Ayam” said
it recorded the gift of a mountain pool/spring by the chief of the hill at a
place called Peru Thorur. It is clearly an inscription with Jaina affinity
because you can see the drip line cut above the inscription, which is carved on
the brow of the rock. The letters are very archaic and they are tall and
narrow. They belong to the Mankulam and Arittapatti (both situated near
Madurai) style of Tamil-Brahmi inscriptions. The archaic nature of the Samana
Malai script can be seen from the spelling of the word ‘Ayam,' which means a mountain
pool of water or spring.
