Running/Interpreting C on top of the JVM?

Question

Is there a way to run plain c code on top of the JVM?
Not connect via JNI, running, like you can run ruby code via JRuby, or javascript via Rhino.

If there is no

Answer 1

As of 2016 there is a young but promising option called gcc-bridge. Its intend is to leverage the JVM's implementation of R. The goal is to use R-libraries written in C or Fortran. But gcc-bridge can be used independently as a regular maven plugin. Also see the gcc-brigde-example.