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sion the relationships mentioned in the lullaby are also explained. In a 17th centuary Old Gujarati version the same set of 18 relationships is reproduced. Throughout its long history the illustrative Dharmakathā of the Jain tradition up to the presentday is understood to have as its significance and spirit the fact that the worldly family relationship is in fact likely to be morally reprehensible and the story has been always used by preachers to demonstrate this with a view to inculcate the spirit of renunciation. Reading in it implications of Oedipus or Electra Complex is clearly an extraneous modernistic interpretion and a basic distortion. Hence also it cannot be used as an instance of Little Tradition. Had Ramanujan known about the history of this story, he possibly would have not imterpreted it as an illustration of Oedipus Complex.
Over years I have been working in the area of Classical Indian narrative literature in all its aspects. It is linked up with the folk-tale studies in the comparative/historical approach. The greater part of my published work in the subject relates to noting early Indian versions of widely reported tales, primarily from Prakrit and Early NIA literatures, in the light of the Type and Motif approach in the AarneThompson tradition. Understandably, the vast amount of data to be handled leaves no choice but to be selective and leave untouched the ‘function' aspects
