Jain Spirit 2005 12 No24

SR No.: 529004
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: Jain Spirit UK
Publisher: UK Young Jains
Publication Year: 2005
Total Pages: 102
Language: English
Classification: Magazine, UK_Jain Spirit, & UK
File Size: 21 MB

Page 78

HISTORY
EVA DE CLERCQ explains the Jain version of the Ramayana...
he ancient legend of Rama, the prince of Ayodhya, and the search for his kidnapped wife Sita, is one of the most popular and influential stories in and beyond South Asia.
This is evident from the great number and variety of adaptations of the story, which we find in so many different forms: from the reliefs at the Prambanan temples in Indonesia to the classical dances of Thailand. What many Jains are unaware of is that since antiquity there have been Jain versions of the story as well.
Tradition holds that this Rama story was told by Mahavir ONE DAY himself. The teachings of Mahavir were compiled by LAKSHMANA GOES his immediate followers into twelve texts, the Angas, of OUT FOR A WALK AND which the twelfth, thought to contain the original Jain
SPOTS A MAGICAL SWORD HOVERING Rama legend, has unfortunately gone lost. What remains IN THE AIR... are later poems in Sanskrit, Prakrit and vernacular
languages by poets narrating the Rama story as they have learned it from their respective teachers. Vimalasuri's Paumacariyam, 'The Deeds of Padma', with Padma referring to Rama, is the oldest available Jain Ramayana. According to a manuscript of this text, the poet belonged to the first century. However, several scholars suggest he rather lived in the third or fifth century. Vimalasuri's narrative was followed by many later authors, the most notable of whom is the famous Acharya Hemachandra (12th century).
CP
illustration:
This Jain Ramayana first narrates the history of the different dynasties in which the protagonists are born. The originator of the lkshvaku dynasty, to which Rama and his relatives belong, was the first Tirthankara, Adinath Rishabha. When Rishabha renounces the world, he distributes his land among his relatives, who all form their own branches. At the time of the second Tirthankara, Ajita, a new dynasty arises in Lanka, the Rakshasa dynasty named after a vidya, a magical power which
protected (from the Sanskrit root raksh) the city of Lanka. Contrary to other versions, these Rakshasas, here meaning 'descendants of the Rakshasa dynasty', are not demons but a noble race of humans. Generations later, the Rakshasa king donates the island of Vanara to his brother-in-law, giving rise to the Vanara dynasty, also a race of humans, not monkeys.
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Vasant Chinchwadkar
JAIN
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RAMAYANA
At the time of the twentieth Tirthankara, Muni Suvrata, Ravana is born in the Rakshasa dynasty. He grows
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