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A. CHAKRAVARTI :
is assigned the second place in the work. Thus as the result of the challenge from his friendly poet of Madurai Sangam, the Cintāmaņi was composed by Tiruttakkadēva to prove that a Jaina author also could produce a work containing sựngāra-rasa. It was admitted on all sides that he had succeeded wonderfully well. When the work was produced before the academy, the tradition says, the author was asked by his friends how he, from his childhood pledged to perfect purity and celibacy, could compose a poem exhibiting such unequalled familiarity with sensual pleasures. In order to clear up this doubt it is said he took up a red-hot ball of iron with these words “Let this burn me, if I am not pure”; and it is said he came out of the ordeal unscathed, and his friends apologised to him for casting doubt on the purity of his conduct'.
Unilke the previous work silappadikāram which is supposed to deal with the historical events which took place during the life-time of the author, this classic deals with the purāņic story of Jīvaka. The story of Jivaka is found in Sanskrit literature in plenty. The continuation work of the Mahāpurāņam by Jinasēna, composed by his disciple Guņabhadra”, contains the
1. V. Swaminatha Iyer, who also narrates this tradition in detail in his edition of the Jivaka-Cintāmaņi (1923), says (Introduction, pp. 12-14) that the tradition is current among the Jains of the Tamil country.
2. The Mahāpurāņa, also known as Trişaştilak şaņa-Mahāpurā ņa, consists of the Adipurā ņa in fortyseven chapters and the
(Contd)
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