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________________ TYPES OF STORIES IN SANSKRIT AND PRAKRIT.... 159 6. Manikulya : is a story with mystery, the secret of which is revealed at the end. Its example is Matsyahasita (The laughter of a fish, or 'A laughing fish?) No work of this name is available or extant. 7. Parikatha : is a new type of story heard for the first time in Anandavardhana's Dhvanyaloka. In Parikatha there is just a narration of the story and no intention at all of depicting sentiment (rasa). Abhinavagupta defines it as follows : Parikatha is the narration of numerous anecdotes one after another in a variety of ways to inculcate one of the four purusarthas (ends of human life). Bhoja defines it in his Srngaraprakasa as follows : That is called Parikatha wherein experts in narrating stories compete in the art one after another desiring to outshine each other by narrating a story each. Its example is sudraka-katha, which however is not extant. According to Locana it may be in any language, according to Ratnesvara, Bhoja's commentator, it is in Prakrit. 8. Khandakatha : Anandavardhana informs us that the Khandakatha and the Sakalakatha are well-known in Prakrit literature and abound in Kulakas (Kulaka meaning a number of verses ranging from five to fifteen and the whole forming one sentence) thus suggesting that both of them are mixed in prose and verse. According to Bhoja and Hemacandra it is one episode from a very popular work retold separately or independently, e.g. Indumati. This work, however, is not extant. 9. Upakatha : Bhoja and following him, Hemacandra, define upakatha as follows : "An upakatha is what is very well-known by that name, a sub-story coming up in the middle of a main story." It thus resembles the upakhyana. Bhoja cites Citralekha as its example. It is not known whether Citralekha is a separate composition or a chapter or section of another work. The latter is probable, says Raghavan. 10. Sakalakatha : Abhinavagupta defines it as follows : The narrative which ends with the attainment of all the desired aims is to be known as Sakalakatha. Hemacandra holds that the well-known Samaradityakatha (original Prakrit name being Samaraiccakaha) is its example. We have already noted that Khandakatha and Sakalakatha are wellknown in Prakrit literatureimplying that they were written in Prakrit. After this detailed treatment of the types (and sub-types) of stories in Prakrit and Sanskrit literatures let us turn to the important topic of Dharmakatha in Jain Literature. There are quite a few dharmakathas in Jain Literature. It is not possible to treat of them in the limited space of this paper. We deal with one or two of the most famous dharmakathas and that too briefly Jain Education International For Private & Personal Use Only www.jainelibrary.org
| SR No. | 001868 |
| Book Title | Studies in Jain Literature |
| Original Sutra Author | N/A |
| Author | V M Kulkarni |
| Publisher | Shardaben Chimanbhai Educational Research Centre |
| Publication Year | 2001 |
| Total Pages | 114 |
| Language | English |
| Classification | Book_English, Literature, & Story |
| File Size | 14 MB |