Aspects of Brahmanical Influence On Jaina Mythology

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

Page 57

The Epics and the Jaina Puränas
However, the lengthy dialogue between Krşna and Arjuna, as embodied in the Bhagavadgita, has been reduced to a brief conversation between the two in the present work This has given the dialogue a practical appearance and has made it appropriate to the occasion. The 'abridgement of the topic has also brought about a fundamental change in the nature of Krşna's teaching to Arjuna inasmuch as the philosophical character of the former's instruction to the latter as embodied in the Gita has acquired in the present work a temporal form, stressing in a purely mundane way, that a Ksatriya should strike his opponent unhesitatingly, no matter if he be his preceptor, father or son or any other relation 102
The Pandavapurāna by Subhacandra (1551 AD) is the second known work concerning the life-story of the Pandavas and is the last in the series of the Purānas undertaken for our uvestigation Like other Jaina Purana this work, too, claims the origin of the Pandava tale from the last Titihankara Mahavira The story is put in the mouth of Gautama Ganadhara, who, in reply to the queries mooted by King Srenika of Magadha, relates the tale as current in the Jaina tradition The questions are instituted in the form of recounting some inconsistencies in the tale incorporated in other works which are branded as full of false and misleading accounts of the events associated with the life of the epican heroes and heroines
Most of the absurdities and inconsistencies as enumerated by Subhacandra relatç to the Mahabharata version The dig at the traditional accounts begins with a summary of the birthstory of Matsyagandha,103 great grandmother of the KauravaPandava brothers The brief account of the story allegedly current in other tradition is that king Santanu (spelt in the work as Santanu), when out on a military expedition, sent his semen by a hawk to his wife during the period after her menstrual discharge But the hawk on its way to the capital was attacked
102 Pc 13 25-27. 103 SPP 2,31-42.