Early Jainism

SR No.: 001520
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: K K Dixit
Publisher: L D Indology Ahmedabad
Publication Year: 1978
Total Pages: 120
Language: English
Classification: Book_English, Agam, Canon, & Philosophy
File Size: 7 MB

Page 82

Five Anga-texts - story-collection
it is this what makes these chapters a close kin of those containing illus. trative stories which too are similarly equipped with a more or less wellstructured plot. To argue further, so far as depicting the hnman situation is concerned Jñātadharmakathā with its illustrative stories and religious narratives is even richer than Vipākaśruta I which is the richest of the four Angic story-texts reviewed above. [In passing, let it also be noted that to the original Jñātadharmakathā with its 19 chapters was later on added a new section with 206 stereotyped stories based on just one that tells of a nun excessively interested in tending her body ( a motif already present in the Draupadi-story of Ch. XVI), the same story also belng the basis of the 10 stereotyped stories collected in the Upānga Puśpacūla. As a result, the original Jñatadharmakatha came to be called Jñatadharmakatha I, this new section Jnutadharmakatha II.)
These general observations regarding the socialt hemes developed in the Angic story-texts might be further concretized on the basis of detailed studies but we cave them at that and turn our attention to the mythological themes developed in these texts. In the course of time the Jaina authors came to formulate a whole lot of mythological notions characteristic of their school and it was only natural that a good number of those notions should find expression in the story-literature produced by this school. Perhaps, the most fundamental of these notions was one to the effect that as a result of performing some noble act a person-even an animal-might be next born as a god residing in a particular heavenly region, and this notion is present in our story-texts in a most conspicuous fashion, Thus it is said ahout the hero of each and every U pasakadaśa story that he will be next born as a god; similarly, it is said about the hero of each and every Anuttarau papātika story that he will be next born as a god residing in the uppermost heavenly region called Anuttara. (A statement like this could not have been made about the heroes of Antakyddaśa stories for the obvious reason that they are all said to have attained mokşa at the end of their present life.) And as we have seen, the Vi pakaśruta I stories are of the form of a doublet narrating two births of the hero concerned, but there is always appended to them a statement regarding the future births of this hero which are often a case of birth in some heavenly region; (in Vi paka II too the hero of the story is said to be next born as a god). Lastly in the Jnātad harmakatha stories the characters like Meghakumāra, Draupadi, Pundarika and even that frog are said to be next born as a god, Sailaka, the five Pandavas and Telaliputra to have attained mokṣa at the end of their present "Ife), Malli and her six suitors are said to have been gods in their past births; (in Jñātadharmakatha II the very purpose of the story is to describe the past human birth of the female-consorts of the god-chiefs pertaining
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