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are taken up by the narratives of the queens of Seniya who entered the order under the influence of the teachings of Mahāvīra. The seventh Vagga is only the enumeration of the thirteen queen of Seniya and their stories are to be repeated mutatis mutandis with the story of Paumāral.
Only the sixth Vagga is important in so far as it sheds a good deal of light on the development of a short story in India. There are two stories in fact in this Vagga, the story of Mālāgāra Ajjunaya and the story of Prince Aimutta. The story of Mālāgāra Ajjuņaya represents the type of the romantic stories of Brihat-kathā which were much in vogue in those days. The story of Prince Aimutta is a riddle-story; the seed of the story, so to speak, is implanted in a riddle; जं चेव जाणामि तं चेव न SITUNISA I Ha a siunfo ä se tunfo 142 The last and eighth Vagga is occupied merely with the description 10 penances.
In the first stratum of Ant., the story of Gaya-sukumala is at once tragic and appealing To quote Barnett 4 3 “To me there seems to be an infinite pathos in these gloomy stories of the
42. See Ant, Text. P. 49 1. 23–25. 43. Barnett, Ant. & Aņu. Trans. Intro. P. viii
