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32
NARRATIVE TALE IN JAIN LITERATURE
opportunity, religious exhortations are introduced with dogmatical details and didactic discourses. The tendency of introducing stories-in-stories is so prevalent that a careful reader alone can keep in mind the different threads of the story. Illustrative tales are added here and there, being usually drawn from folktales and beast-fables; and at all the contexts the author shows remarkable insight into the workings of human mind. The spirit of asceticism is writ large throughout the text; and almost as a rule every hero retires from the world to attain better status in the next life.
[Taken from the Introduction of Brhatkathākosa
of Ācārya Harişeņa ed by A.N. Upadhye, Bhāratīya Vidyā Bhavan, Bombay, 1943]
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