Dravida Sangha was established in 470 CE by a

Jain Jainism ( ), also known as Jain Dharma, is an Indian religion. Jainism traces its spiritual ideas and history through the succession of twenty-four tirthankaras (supreme preachers of ''Dharma''), with the first in the current time cycle being ...

monk named Vajranandi in the city of

Madurai Madurai ( , also , ) is a major city in the Indian state of Tamil Nadu. It is the cultural capital of Tamil Nadu and the administrative headquarters of Madurai District. As of the 2011 census, it was the third largest Urban agglomeration in ...

in present-day

Tamil Nadu Tamil Nadu (; , TN) is a States and union territories of India, state in southern India. It is the List of states and union territories of India by area, tenth largest Indian state by area and the List of states and union territories of India ...

. Madurai at that time was under the sway of the Kalabhra rule. The Jain Dravida Sangha aimed at creating a casteless society, inspired by the Jain school of thought. The Dravida Sangha was also one of the first groups to espouse a Dravidian identity among Tamils and other south Indians. According to Prof.

George L. Hart George Luzerne Hart, III (born c. 1942) is Professor Emeritus of Tamil language at the University of California, Berkeley. His work focuses on the classical Tamil language, Tamil literature and on identifying the relationships between the Tamil ...

, who holds the endowed Chair in Tamil Studies by University of California, Berkeley, and has written that the legend of Tamil Sangam (literary assembly) was based on the Jain assembly (Sangham) at Madurai: :"There was a Jaina assembly called a Sa(n)gha established about 604 AD in Maturai."

History

Dravida Sangha is said to have been established by Vajranandi in 470 CE.

References

{{Jainism Topics Tamil history Jain organisations

History

See also

References