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INTRODUCTION
81
Bhadrabahu was used by Rice, Narasimhacharya' and others in their discu. ssion about the migration of the Jaina Sangha to the South, especially to Sravana Belgola, when a severe famine raged in Northern India. Pt. Premi published its prasasti and introduced it to Hindi readers; and lately he has revised some of his earlier opinions. There has appeared a Marăthi digest of a portion of it.
Now it has been abundantly clear to us that this Treasury of stories presents a series of tales which illustrate the veiled and explicit allusions found in the Bha. Arādhană. Not only this relation is well established but all the stories are also serially associated with the gāthās from that work. In the absence of their context in the Bha. A., the stories, though quite significant individually and showing some affinity of subject matter among themselves in small groups, stand without mutual connection and continuity as such. Harişeņa has not given the găthās with which the stories are to be associated; and he gives very little hint on this point by saying that the Kathākosa composed by him is ārādhanoddhrta (Prasasti 8), meaning thereby that the stories are drawn out, extracted or chosen from the which stands for the Bhagavati A. perhaps inseparably connected with some Prakrit commentary that gave all these tales. We cannot easily take ud dhr in the sense of udāhr and argue that they are illustrative stories on the Arādhană găthās. Harişeņa uniformly calls this treasury, Kathākoša; and he has not added any specification like Prabhācandra and Nemidatta who qualify their Kathakośas by the term Arādhană. There are two colo. phons which mention the name as Bșhat Kathakośa (pp. 276 foot-note I and 356); but it is equally possible that these might belong to the copyists. The Praśasti mentions the name Kathākośa ; and it is likely that later on the adjective Bșhat came to be added perhaps to distinguish it from smaller collections of Prabhācandra and Nemidatta, and on the analogy of Bșhatkathā etc. This title, being already accepted in circulation, has been retained in this edition. The term brhat connotes bulk and extent, so it is difficult to say whether it is anticipated by the adjective paraṁ in one of the Mangala verses (No. 3).
The total Grantha-saṁkhyā is given to be 12500 Ślokas. Apart from the Mangala and Prasasti sections, the text is said to contain The story No. 102 contains ten sub-stories, and I have already shown above (p. 5 of the Intro.) how a slight readjustment is necessary to arrive at the correct number of stories. The whole work is composed mostly in Anuştubh metre; and a few longer metres, some quoted and some composed by the
1 Mysore and Coorg from the Inscriptions pp. 2 f.; Epigraphia Carnatica, vol. II,
1st and 2nd eds., Bangalore 1889 and 1923, Intro. pp. 37f. of the 2nd ed. 2 Jaina Hitaishi, 14, pp. 216-18; Jaina Sāhitya aura Itihāsa, pp. 434-9. 3 Bịhatkathākoša, part 1 (stories 1-66, the last story being that of Mrgasena),
by Ajiāta, Osmanabad, Vira Sam. 2463. 4 See Section 5 above where the găthās and the corresponding stories from different
Kośas are noted.
11
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