Bruhat Katha kosha

Author(s): Harishen Acharya,
Publisher: Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan

Page 70

INTRODUCTION
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In all the above types of works, excepting some of the semihistorical Prabandhas, certain traits specially attract our attention, because they are not quite normal and not found in such an abundance in other branches of Indian literature. Pages after pages are devoted to the past and future lives; and the vigilant and omnipotent law of Karman m'eticulously records their pious and impious deeds whose consequences no one can escape. Whenever there is an opportunity, religious exhortations are introduced with dogmatical details and didactic discourses. The tendency of introducing stories-in-stories is so prevalent that a careful reader alone. can keep in mind the different threads of the story. Illustrative tales are added here and there, being usually drawn from folktales and beast-fables ; and at all the contexts the author shows remarkable insight into the workings of human mind. The spirit of asceticism is writ large throughout the text; and almost as a rule every hero retires from the world to attain better status in the next life.
3. COMPILATIONS OF KATHĀNAKAS: A SURVEY
In various Bhandāras we come across a large number of Mss. which are collections of stories; and their names are available to us from catalogues like the Brhattippanikā, Taina Granthāvali? and Tinaratnakosa. The last work is the most up-to-date and exhaustive Catalogus Catalogorum So studiously prepared by Prof. H. D. Velankar. The following list is mainly based on that work, the advance-formes of which, thanks to the kindness of the Author and Publishers, I have been allowed to use. Without a thorough examination of the Mss. it is difficult to distinguish one Kathākosa from the other; so I have noted specially those works which could be mutually distinguished and about which some specific information could be noted afresh.
Kathakosa (Kathănakakośa or Kathākosa-prakaraṇam): It is in Prakrit containing 239 gathās according to the Bșhattippanikā. In the opening gāthī the author declares that he would preach some Nayas, illustrations or exemplary tales, which are the cause of liberation. The verses only mention the stories with catchwords: sometimes stories more than one are associated with a certain illustration. The fourth gāthä, for instance, says that the soul earns heavenly bliss even by pūjā pranidhāna (desire for or thought about Pūjā or worship) like Jinadatta, Sūrasena, Srimāli and Roranārī. In the first 17 gāthās, which portion alone is studied by me, the stories refer to Jinapūjā and Sādhudāna.* The Sanskrit comment
1 Jaina Sāhitya Samsodhaka vol. II, part 2. 2 Published by the Jaina Svetambara Conference, Bombay Samvat 1965. 3 To be published by the Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute, Poona 4. 4 One Kathākośa is attributed to Haribhadra (Jaina Sāhityano Itihāsa p. 168),
but it has not come to light as yet.