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THE JAINA RĀMĀYAŅAS*
Tt is a well-known fact in the history of Indian literature Ithat the Rāmāyana owes its origin to a single poet while the Mahābhārata is a compendium prepared by several writers. The first and last books of the Rāmāyana are not considered to be genuine in their entirety. They contain stories and legends which have little to do with the main story of Rama. Fresh stories and legends have flowed freely into them. The Rāmāyaṇa has thus grown in bulk though not to the same extent as the Mahābhārata. Several'scholars have made attempts in separating or at least, in distinguishing the genuine from the spurious. Dealing with this problem a considerable amount of literature has accumulated within the last half a century. A study of the Jaina Rāmāyaṇa is interesting regarding the origin and development of the Rāmāyaṇa.
The epic is the natural outcome of the ballad poetry of a nation. It has the stamp of a single genius who takes care to bring unity into his work. Ballads singing the story of Rāma must have been current before Vālmīki. He must have found it possible to arrange the ballads around a central action and a central hero. The result of this attempt was the Rāmāyaṇa. Vālmīki narrated the story in his own way after dressing up the raw material of ballad poetry prior to him. After Vālmiki the Rāmāyaṇa has had some more development. Normally this is the way in which any story develops to unwieldly proporcions. But there are other ways also. Owing to several religious and social influences a story current at a time may radiate in several directions and every offshoot or set of offshoots may assume independence in
of time. This seems to be the process by which the
By courtesy: The Indian Historical Quarterly, Vol. xv, pp. 575ff.
