Yasastilaka and Indian Culture

SR No.: 001609
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: Krishnakant Handiqui
Publisher: Jain Sanskruti Samrakshak Sangh Solapur
Publication Year: 1968
Total Pages: 566
Language: English
Classification: Book_English, Story, Literature, & Culture
File Size: 16 MB

Page 66

3. THE STORY OF YASODHARA AND ITS SOURCES
47
Thirdly, there is hardly any theological bias in Haribhadra's version. Somadeva employs the dialogue between Yaśodhara and his mother in Book IV on the subject of animal sacrifice as a vehicle for launching a series of attacks on Hinduism; and the aim of the writer is also to establish the claim of Jainism to greater consideration than it seems to have received among his non-Jaina cantemporaries. In Haribhadra's version, the mother, indeed, asks her son to sacrifice animals 'according to the Vedic procedure', but the latter confines himself to pointing out that a propitiatory rite is not compatible with the killing of animals, and that he best performs à sāntikarma who regards all living beings with the same consideration as himself (p. 246):
इहलोए परलोए य संतियम्म भणुत्तरं तस्स । जह पेच्छह अप्पाणं तह जो सम्वे सया जीवे ॥ As regards the mother's contention that it is permissible to commit sin for the sake of health, the son asserts that it is rather on account of the protection given to living creatures that a man acquires longevity, beauty and health, besides winning universal admiration in the lif come (p. 247):
दीहाउभो सुरूवो नीरोगो होइ अभयदाणेणं । जम्मंतरे वि जीवो सयलजणसलाहणिजो य॥
The controversy between the king and his mother, in Haribhadra's version, comes to an end with a declaration by the former of the evils of flesh-eating and the benefits of abstention therefrom. Throughout the episode the Jaina standpoint is stressed, but attacks on the Brahmanical religion are entirely absent. It is obviously far from the intention of Haribhadra to make the mother and the son protagonists of two rival faiths, as is done by the author of Yasastilaka.
Thoughts on the treachery of women are common to both the versions, and that of Haribhadra contains besides a condemnation of marriage in the episode of Yasodhara and Vinayamati. Most of the birth stories generally agree in the two versions, but there are certain episodes which Haribhadra with his lucid and simple style treats in a more realistic fashion. The torture of the buffalo that killed the king's favourite horse, is, for example, repulsive enough in Somadeva, but it is more so in the detailed picture of refined cruelty whith Haribhadra presents before his readers. On the whole, the latter's version of the story of Yasodhara is a well-balanced narrative with qualities which we miss in the intricate prose of Somadeva's Yašastilaka.
1 See Chapter XIII. 2 Book V.