One of the most
popular methods of execution, which appears to have been especially popular in
ancient southern India.
Impaling someone means piercing them with a sharp spike and
killing them.
The most spectacular incident is said to have occurred at
Madurai, when 8,000 Jain ascetics were impaled by one of the Pandya dynasties'
rulers after the latter had left Jainism to become a Shaiva, or a Shiva devotee
(bhakta).
The Nayanar saint Sambandar, who had converted the monarch
and whose surviving poetry displays a great animus towards the Jains, is said
to bear ultimate culpability for this, according to legend.
If this claim is accurate, it also reveals one of the few
examples of religious persecution in Hindu India, which has been very accepting
of other religious practices on the whole.
Murals created in the Minakshi temple in Madurai—whose construction predates the supposed event—as well as popular art of many types depict depictions of this mass impalement.
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