Aspects of Brahmanical Influence On Jaina Mythology

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

Page 31

Introduction
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the earlier five topics carnct be dated later than the fourth century AD, as it has been convincingly shown by eminent Indologists on critical examination of different sections, that the extra-Purānic materials were incorporated in the Purānas mostly between the 3rd and 5th centuries A D 45 The date of the earliest extant Jaina Purana on the other hand, cannot be pushed earlier than the fifth century of the christian era 46 This being the case, the upper limit of the Jaina Purānas would thus start from the point where the lower limit of the works of the Brāhmanical schools terminates Hence it will not be unrea. sonable to ascribe the cases of parallelism to the influences of the older branch on the newly formed tradition.
It will however, be a travesty of fact to hold that the influence was one sided The faiths developing side by side and deriving the sap of life from the same sections of people, who had been professing the same cult and creed, must be supposed to exercise their mutual influences The Brāhmanical religion and ethics bear conspicuous stamp of Buddhist and Jaina influences But, that is a different tale altogether What the present study endeavours to show is to lay bare principally those elements and facts which were unknown to or neglected and even ridiculed by the compilers of the Jaina canons, but were later on incorporated into the corpus of the Jaina Purānic literature under the pressing influences of the Brāhmanical epic-Purānic tradition,
44 Pargiter, AIHT (Ancient Indian Historical Tradition), pp 49-61 45 RC Hazra, Studies in the Purānic Records on Hindu Rites and Customs,
chapters II-IV, quoted by RC Majumdar in "The Classical Age',
p. 298 46 For the different theories about the date of Vimalastri's Païmacariya,
the earliest cxtant Jaina Purāna, scc VM Kulkarni, Introduction to Poūmacarija, pp 8-15,