Thirukkural and Buddhism, North/south architecture

[Yashwant Malaiya]

Sudalaimuthu Palaniappan wrote:
----
aklujkar at UNIXG.UBC.CA writes:
> Why is walking taken as meaning sitting/seating?  Is there any account of
>  the Buddha walking on lotuses? In Jain literature one finds the word
>  pu.spa-caara.na, ...
In the Tamil Jain tradition, arukan2/arukakkaTavuL, the Jain divinity, is 
supposed to have walked on the flower. It is seen in the cilappatikAram line 
forming part of a arukakkaTavuL nAmAvali 
  malar micai naTantOn2 malar aTi allatu (cil. 10.204)
The section also praises arukan2 as eNkuNan2 (one of eight guNas) and 
pakavan2. 
----

The Jain divinity here is Arahanta (Skt. Arhat). The 24 Jinas, like
Lord Mahavira were Arhantas. There is an interesting painting
http://www.si.umich.edu/Art_History/UMMA/1975/1975_2.174.jpg
that illustrates this.

Incidentally Buddha too is said to have walked on lotuses, some of you
might remember that from a movie couple of years ago, I foreget
the name. Because of reasons I mentioned before, Thirukkural 
is the work of a Jain.

Incidentally a new Jain translation of Thirukkural has just come
out ( I haven't received it yet). It is published by the Tamil Jain
community. The translation by Sundaram (Penguin) has been out of 
print for a long time.

Incidentally, the architectures of north/south are closely
related. The gopuram structures are often said to be of "dravidian" 
style. The long building on the top represents structures which 
were very common in north (but were  made of wood). You
can see them reproduced in the caves.

Yashwant