Aspects of Brahmanical Influence On Jaina Mythology

Author(s): Shaktidhar Jha
Publisher: Bharat Bharti Bhandar

Page 22

Aspects of Brahn anical Influence on the Jaina Mythologji
ture of autumn is an ingenious imitation of VR which has given the former not only a powerful vocabulary of literary teims but also whetted his imaginative brain for the graphic description of several situations To cite one more among the many, the pen-picture of the autumnal bellowing of the excited bulls-enraged at the sight of their counterparts and ready for fight, with reddened eyes, and scraching ground with their hoofs14_has remarkable agreement with the similar description in the TR 15 A close and careful comparative study of all the Jaina Puränas on the one hand and the present epic on the other is sure to reveal several cases of verbal agreement between them 16
A perusal of the Purānas further reveals that while the epic-Purānic tradition has given them materials mostly on religious, sacramental, ethical, philosophical as well as mythological, dynastic and genealogical planes, the Bghathathā has supplied them with a large stock of supernatural stories and episodes The case of the contribution of the BK to the Jaina narrative literature has already been established on irrevocable grounds by some eminent orientalists 17 Now, to add one more evidence in favour of their stand, it must be said that unlike 14 satag gicETTE Arsitaide II वृषा प्रतिवृपालोककुपिता प्रतिसस्वनु ।।
MP 28 42 16 शरद्गुणाप्यायित रूपशोभा महर्षिता पासुसमुक्षिताङ्गा । मदोत्कटा सम्प्रति युद्धलुब्धा वृपा गवा मध्यगता नदन्ति ।
-Rāma, Kışkı, 30 38, also cf Rāmā Kiski
30 47 ff and MP 26 36 ff. 16 Rāmā IV 30 81
न च सकुचित पन्था येन वाली हतो गत । समये तिष्ठ सुग्रीव मा वालिपथमन्वगा ।। cf मा साहसगते गं गम सकुचितो न स. ।
-TSPC 7 6 1896, अनिर्वेद श्रियो मूलम०
Rāmā VI 12 10, TSPC, 7 6 516 17 Vide L Alsdorf, Bullelin of the School of Oriental and African Studies
Vol VIII, quoted in JC Jain History of Prakrita Literature, PP 382-83