________________
अनुसन्धान- ५४ श्रीहेमचन्द्राचार्यविशेषांक भाग - २
ished to see that this verse was missing there, even in a marginal note!
१५८
The Acarya was famous for his ready wit. Summing up what he had heard in prose, he might have put it into a verse that numbered the Pandavas in hundreds. He was thus able to demonstrate the multiplicity of the Pandavas, and in the spirit of syādvāda “ke 'pi cit bhaveyuh"- claiming modestly one of them for the Jaina Faith!
If necessary, the Acarya would have probably explained in a similar manner the plurality of Krishna-s and Balaramas, Rama-s and Lakshmana-s, Ravana-s and Jarasandha-s, and others, to account for the differences between their narratives in the Jaina and Brahmanical works.
The alternative to this (plurality) would have been to present the story of a single group of Pandavas, as it is found in the Mahabharata, call that story false and misinformed, and then offer a corrected and "true" version, as propounded in the Jaina tradition.
This is precisely what the Digambara Bhattaraka Vadicandra, residing in the area near Khambhat in southern Gujarat, achieved in his Pandava-Purana, composed in 1598 A.D.
It begins with King Shrenika's visit to the samavasarana of Tirthnkara Mahavira. Shrenika asked the Venerable Gautama (ganadhara) questions about the wonderful story of the sons of King Pandu. He added, however:
"O Lord, I have heard from the mouths of the wrong believers (mithya-drishti-mukhān mayā shruyate) a story of some kind about them, because of that my mind is constantly troubled by doubt. (I. 73-74.)
"Therefore, O Lord, first I will narrate to you the story of the Bharata (Bharatam yan mayashrāvi (i.e. the Mahabharata), as I heard it."
