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Studies in Jainology, Prakrit
manner. As a result there emerged a magnificient flow of Prakrit Narrative Literature, which gradually grew to a vast extent, covering a long period between c.400 A.D. to 1700 A.D., and assuming various forms, types and trends such as Puranas/Caritas, religious novels and romances, historical and semi-historical tales, kathākosas, satires, legends, myths, didactic tales, parables, fables, fol- tales etc., wherein the society depicted, on the whole, came to be more popular and realistic than aristocratic and artificial. Hence it embodies a mine of significant social and cultural data, which is indispensable for the thorough reconstruction of the cultural history of India.
This magnificient stream of Prakrit Narrative Literature, I would stress, has a very resourceful tribulary, so very important for its age, size, strength, riches, reliability, variety and utility. This tributary is nonc clse than the most important layer of the Jaina cxegesis viz.., the corpus of the Curnis, more exactly its massive narrative part, the veritable trcasure of numerous multi-valued narratives of varied types, upon which the medieval and late medicval Jaina teachers liberally drew and compiled numerous Kathākosas.
The Cūrnis, which are composed (during c. 7th Century A.D.) in Prakrit prose, mixed with Sanskrit in different degrees, hold a position of juncture in the Jaina exegesis, marking a departure from the archaic Prakrit verse of the Niryuktis and the Bhāsyas on one hand and paving the path for the classical Sanskrit prose of the Tīkās on the other. The cardinal aspect of the many-sided value of the Cūrnis is it's preserving intact the old Prakrit narratives in their own grand inimitable style. These narratives, which were nurtured and operated, on need, in the oral tradition, as hinged on the lively telegraphic line of the Niryuktis and Bhāsyas, were carefully set down in writing for the first time, with all their riches and niceties, in the Cūrnis. And these narratives, let me repeat, naturally embody a fund of significant
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| SR No. | 001597 |
| Book Title | Studies in Jainology Prakrit Literature and Languages |
| Original Sutra Author | N/A |
| Author | B K Khadabadi |
| Publisher | Prakrit Bharti Academy |
| Publication Year | 1997 |
| Total Pages | 460 |
| Language | English |
| Classification | Book_English, Literature, & Language |
| File Size | 22 MB |