The site at Kazhugumalai, which is accorded a special position by both scholars as well as Tamil Jains, has three main features: an unfinished monolithic Shiva temple dating to the eighth century CE a gallery of Jain bas-reliefs, and over 102 inscriptions-the highest for a Jain site in south India-created between the 8th and 12th centuries and more-recently, a century-old Ayyanar temple. Here, we explore the Jain architectural landscape through Kazhugumalai, in Thoothukudi district, located about 120 km from Madurai. The cultural and architectural contributions of Tamil Jains are, however, less known. There are also numerous smaller works that were authored by them. Out of these, the literary works of Tamil Jains are their best-known contribution-three of the five great Tamil epics were written by Jains. However, their presence and influence is evident across the literary, cultural, and architectural landscape of Tamil Nadu (Emmerich 2011 Jain 2016). They are not obviously visible in the public sphere today (Jain 2015). Within the state of Tamil Nadu, they comprise around 0.12 per cent of the population (Census 2015). There are just over 25,000 Tamil Jains-this number includes Jains who migrated from north India. Tamil Jains are a minority within a minority.
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