Treasury of Jain Tales

SR No.: 006762
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: V M Kulkarni
Publisher: Shardaben Chimanbhai Educational Research Centre
Publication Year: 1994
Total Pages: 468
Language: English
Classification: Book_English
File Size: 17 MB

Page 28

XV
A Brief Survey of Jain Narrative Literature 29
The narrative literature of the Svetāmbaras is a veritable storehouse of folktales, fairy-tales, beast-fables, parables, illustrative examples, apologues, allegories, legends, novels, funny stories and anecdotes. A large number of such tales and parables and legends occur in the Jain Canon itself; and the number of tales occurring in the commentaries on the canon is legion ! The Jain writers have created new stories and legends of their own, no doubt. But generally speaking they relate the old stories as have been handed down to them by literary or popular tradition. The only significant addition they make is the sermon of the kevalin (accomplished monk, possesser of the perfect knowledge, the completely enlightened) at the end of the story explaining the cause or causes for the misfortunes suffered or prosperity enjoyed by the characters in the story. The Jain monks were very shrewd and practical-minded. They exploited the Indian people's inborn love for stories for the propagation of their Dharma.
The Jain stories, folktales, animal fables, parables, etc. are of great importance for a solution of the problem of migration of stories and for a comparative study of fairytale lore. Eminent scholars have shown in their studies that some of the stories in the canon and in the commentaries on the canon contain many popular themes and that some of them occur in other Indian and non-Indian literatures and that they form part of the common treasury of universal literature.30 The Jain stories are also of great importance as they go beyond the kings and their body of courtiers and court-intrigues and describe the real life and manners of the various classes of the 29. This survey mainly confines itself to the story literature of the
Svetāmbaras only as all the tales in the present volume are drawn from it. In the introduction to another volume we intend
to take a similar survey of the story literature of the Digambaras. 30. For example, See Winternitz : History of Indian Literature,
Volume II, University of Calcutta, 1933, pp 484, 545; and Dr. Hertel : On the Literature of the Svetāmbaras of Gujarat, 1922, pp. 11f.