Book Title: Aspects of Brahmanical Influence On Jaina Mythology
Author(s): Shaktidhar Jha
Publisher: Bharat Bharti Bhandar

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Page 143
________________ The Ikştāku Race and its Various Branches 125 later on, discharged by Fahnu so she came to be stylcd Jähnad128 after having been accepted by the royal sage as his daughter. A comparison of the above two accounts, as appearing in the Brahmanical and Jaina texts, clearly shows that subject to some modifications, the Jaina accounts are in general agreement with the epic-Purānic versions of the episode. Thus we find that in the Brahmanical accounts the 60,000 princes meet their end on account of disrespect shown to sage Kapila, while in the Jaina versions they are destroyed by an offended Näga king. As is evident from the accounts, in both the versions the ultimate cause of tragedy is the indiscrect religious fei vour of the princes A perusal of the various Jaina texts, however, reveals that there does not subsist uniformity of representation of the incident Now what is more significant is that the disharmony is found in the versions of the same sect. Thus, Gunabhadra's account of the life of Sagara and his sons is substantially different from the versions of his Digambara predecessors For, according to the Ullarapurāna20 version, Sagara's 60,000 sons actually did not meet the tragic end But it was god Manicūla's stratagem which showed the sixty thousand princes as dead We are told that the device was adopted by the god to prepare king Sagara for the renunciation of the worldly lıfe With this end in view the god gave king Sagara a false report of the sad and sudden destruction of his sixty thousand sons, whom the deity had actually turned into a heap of ashes through his magical power. The king believing the statement was filled with disgust for worldly life and took to mendicancy after installing Bhagiratha on the throne His said sons after regaining consciousness followed their father's path Thus the Sagara-carita suffers from the same disharmony of representation as many other narratives, and its individual parts are worked out all the more differently in various works 28 Hy 1 27 8,1 42 47 Câyu 91 57-584 MBh 13 4 3, 29 48 107-30

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