Place · rock-cut Jain cave · India
Sittanavāsal
Also known as Sittanavasal & Tamil-Brahmi caverns, Tamil-Brahmi
The Pandya-period Jain cave temple at Sittanavasal in Pudukkottai district, Tamil Nadu, cut in the 2nd century BCE and painted in the 7th-9th centuries under Pandya patronage — one of the oldest surviving Jain cave temples and the second-oldest extant mural site in India after Ajanta. The Ardha-mandapa and inner shrine contain fresco paintings of a lotus-tank with celestial figures and a dancing woman that preserve the lost Pandya painting style. The 9th-century Brahmi inscription in the cave is one of the earliest records of Tamil Jainism, which continuous south Indian Jaina scholarship predates both the Shaiva and Vaishnava bhakti movements by several centuries.
- Function
- Religious institution & practice
- Tradition
- Tamil Jain tradition; Brahmi inscriptions
- Confidence
- Established / referenced
- Location
- 10.450, 78.730
Worth knowing
Tamil-Brāhmī cavern inscriptions here are among the earliest writing found in the Tamil country.
Connections (2)
- Companion in the same setKazhugumalai Jain beds, Tuticorin
Kazhugumalai and Sittanavāsal are what Tamil Jainism left in rock: reliefs, beds and Vatteluttu inscriptions from the centuries before the Śaiva and Vaishnava bhakti movements displaced it. Sittanavāsal's cave paintings are the only substantial Jain murals surviving in the Tamil country. Tamil Jainism was substantial enough in the eighth century to be worth persecuting, and the Śaiva hymns of the period name the Jains as opponents by the thousand.
- Site adjacencyKeeladi
Sittanavasal's Jain caves and Keeladi's urban settlement are both in the Pandya country and both carry Tamil-Brahmi. The Jain rock-cut beds and their donative inscriptions are among the earliest dated Tamil writing, which is why the argument about Keeladi's dates matters for them too: the two bodies of evidence have to be made consistent with each other.
On these journeys
Sources
Sittanavasal Cave — ASI
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