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BRHAT-KATEAKOSA
Stūpas are well known. Somadeva also refers in his Yaśastilakacampū to the Devanirmitastūpa at Mathură in a similar story. It has to be seen whether there was, or there are any relics of, a group of five Stūpas at that place. In this context I am reminded of the facts that the Nirgrantha Sramaņācārya Guhanandin (Samvat 159) is called Pañcastūpa-nikāyika and that Vir asena and Jinasena belonged to Pancastūpānvaya.' Lastly, so far we know, Harișeņa is the first author to describe the caves on the hills adjoining Dhārāśiva (modern Osmanabad) near Tera which according to this text is situated in the Abhira country (No. 56). It is an urgent need that these topics should be critically studied using all other sources; and then alone it would be possible to separate historical events from their legendary settings.
V) Its Relation with Other Kathākos'as
Among the four Kathakośas, or even five if we treat Vaddărädhane as a partial Kathakosa, whose story-numbers have been tabulated above along with the Arādhanā gāthās, Harişeņa's Treasury contains the biggest number of tales; its text is the longest in extent; it is the earliest in time; generally its
comparatively more exhaustive than those in other Sanskrit collections; and lastly the correspondence of its stories with the gathäs of the Bha. A. is more exhaustive and perfect, and thorough in sequence. It is really unfortunate that no Arādhanā Kośa earlier than that of Harişeņa has come to light, so for the present there is no evidence to assess his indebtedness to his predecessors.
The four Kathākośas clearly fall into two groups: those of Harişeņa (HK) and Sricandra (SK) show closer kinship and stand together, while those of Prabhācandra (PK) and Nemidatta (NK) show a close mutual relation and form a group by themselves almost independently. Whenever we want to compare these groups or works mutually, we should not lose sight of the basic connection with those direct and indirect allusions in the Bha. Ārādhanā. A close comparison of HK with SK discloses some interesting facts. Reading these two texts side by side, one is struck by the remarkable agreement in the sequence of stories adopted by both. The essential contents of individual stories are nearly identical in both; so far as descriptions, details about Bhavas and sub-stories are concerned, HK is more exhaustive; almost in every case the stories from ŚK look like summaries of the corresponding stories of HK; and when the contents are alike, the verbal. agreement also is striking. Though Sricandra is silent in the matter, the above points lead us to the conclusion that he might have used HK in preparing his Kośa. For this conclusion we have some circumstantial evidence too: Harişeņa flourished earlier than Sricandra; Sricandra admits
1 See Yaśastilakacampü, part ii, p. 315; The Jaina Antiquary, VIII, 2, p. 45; A
list of the Inscriptions of Northern India in Brahmi and derivative scripts, Epigraphia Indica XIX-XXIII, p. 283, No. 2037; Jaina Sāhitya aura Itihāsa, p. 497.
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