Story Of Rama In Jain Literature

SR No.: 022775
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: V M Kulkarni
Publisher: Saraswati Pustak Bhandar
Publication Year: 1990
Total Pages: 278
Language: English
Classification: Book_English
File Size: 27 MB

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Story of Rama in Jain Literature
Now let us examine this question of Gunabhadra's sources. Chronologically speaking Adbhuta-Rāmāyaṇa is very much later than Gunabhadra's Uttara-Purana. Grierson remarks: The Adbhuta Rāmāyaṇa is a comparatively modern work. It is distinctly Sakta in character, exalting Sitã above Rāma. It is also an attempt to introduce the terrible cult of Salva Saktism into the altogether alien soil of Vaisnavism." AdbhutaRāmāyaṇa is later than Adhyatma-Rāmāyaṇa (14th or 15th century ). So it cannot be taken as a possible source of Gunabhadra's Rāma story. Again, the way Sità is born according to the story of Adbhuta-Rāmāyaṇa is indeed Adbhuta!
"Ravana in the course of his conquest comes to the Dandaka forest, summons the Rsis there to submit without resistance, and, with this demand, draws from each with the tip of an arrow a little blood, which he collects in a jar.
One of the Rsis is Gṛtsamada, the father of a hundred sons. His wife has begged from him that she may have a daughter, and that this daughter may be Laksmi herself. In order to fulfil her desire, the Rṣi has been day by day sprinkling with appropriate 'mantra's, milk from a wisp of Kusa-grass into a jar, so that thereby it may become inhabited by Lakṣmi. He does this, as usual, on the morning of the day on which Ravana appears, and, before the latter's arrival, goes out into the forest. It is in this same jar that Ravana collects the Rsis's blood. He takes it home with him, and gives it to his wife Mandodari to take care of, telling her that the blood in it is more poisonous than poison itself. She may on no account taste it, or give it to anyone to taste.
Ravana again goes forth on his career of conquest and in Mount Mandara debauches the daughters of the gods etc. Mandodari, seeing them preferred to her, determines to kill herself. With this object, she drinks the contents of the jar of Rsis's blood, which Rāvana has told her is a deadly polson. Instead of dying, she immediately becomes pregnant with Lakṣml, who has been installed in the sprinkled milk by the power of Grtsamanda's 'mantra's.
When she finds herself pregnant in the absence of her husband, in fear of his reproaches she sets out for Kurukşetra under pretence of making a pilgrimage. There. freeing herself from the foetus, she buries it in the ground and returns home, keeping the whole affair a secret.
Shortly afterwards Janaka comes to sacrifice at Kurukṣetra. In order to prepare the ground for the sacrifice, he ploughs it with a golden plough, and while doing so turns up the foetus,--a girl child. Being warned by a voice from heaven, he adopts her and names her Sită. After completing the sacrifice, he takes her home, and brings her up."
28.
Raghavan, V.: Music in the Adbhuta Rāmāyaṇa, Journal Music Academy, Vol. 16, pp. 66ff. and
Grierson, G.A.: On the Adbhuta Rāmāyaṇa, Bulletin of the School of Oriental Studies, Vol. IV. pp.11 ff.