Madanrekha Akhyayika

SR No.: 002639
Original Sutra Author: Jinbhadrasuri
Author: Bechardas Doshi
Publisher: L D Indology Ahmedabad
Publication Year: 1973
Total Pages: 304
Language: Sanskrit, Hindi
Classification: Book_Devnagari & Literature
File Size: 15 MB

Page 66

.
57
realistic. 46 Though as a truly devoted wife she cooperates with her husband in worldly enjoyments,47 she never loses herself in them, and she has the fortitude coupled with rare presence of mind and dispassionate foresight to sooth her husband with wise religious and spiritual counsel, while setting aside the personal misery of her imminent loss of life's only reliable support. This same foresightedness and desperate determination to save her womanly honour makes her bold to escape to the forest just after the death of her husband, though in the process she had to leave her then only son Candrayaśas to bis fate alone. 48 It is again her feminine shrewdness that saves her from the danger of dishonour at the hands of the Vidyadhara youth Maniprabha, whom she deliberately deludes and leads him to Manicuda the omniscient saint who relieves her from the predicament by ridding the mind of the Vidyādbara of misplaced infatuation for ber 49
The poet has taken due advantage of presenting her as a devout Jain lady by putting in her mouth a full-fledged prayer addressed to the Jinas. 50 Her motherly affection makes her intervene in the quarrel between her sons who did not recognize each other as such. The poet has given a masterly touch to her character when he makes a celestial being pay homage to her first in preference to an omniscient saint and makes the gods conferon her the honour of recognition as a true ideal of chastity (satı). 51
(C) Parivrajika :
The character of Parivrājikā seems to have been suggested to the poet from the AMKV where the king is said to have sent a messenger to seduce Madanarekbā. But there she is nothing more than a mere name. Here the poet has developed her into a shrewd character, full of contrast in that although she is a Buddhist nun, she has undertaken a task highly unwarranted and incongruent with her walk of life, the more so since not only does she serve as a love-messenger, but also pleads on behalf of the king in favour of free life of sensual indulgence unhampered by any moralistic scruples. But, as has been recorded in ancient Indian folk literature pre. served in the Sanskrit summaries of Guņādhya's BỊbatkathā, viz; the Kathasaritsāgara, the Bphatktbāmañjari and the like, 52 the motif was quite
46.. Op. cit., pp. 82-83. 47, Op. cit., pp. 92-93. 48. Op. cit., pp. 106–110. 49. Op. cit., p. 117(7–13). 50. Op. cit., pp. 118-119. 51. Op. cit., p. 130(14) 52. KSS, II, 5, 135–135; BKM, II, 185-222.
Jan Education International