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Dr. Charlotte Krause : Her Life & Literature
voked in connection with rites of a more or less tāntrika character as well as for purposes of magic protection, and thus play a great part in Jaina Mantra-śāstra199 and in hymnal literature. Though it is possible that some of their features, particularly their number (16), are connected with such of the 16 tāntrika Goddesses of the Hindu Āgamas, viz., the ten forms of Tripurā and her six friends,200 still the very idea of 'vidyās' in the sense of 'tāntrika lores', can be traced back to the Jaina Sacred Writings themselves.201 In their role as personifications of such tāntrika lores, they are linked up with the ancient Jaina legend of the origin of the 'Vidyādharas', as related in a number of texts.202 According to that legend, Nami and Vinami, two princes, hand been absent when Rşabhadeva, the first Cakravartin, and, subsequently the first Tīrthankara of this avasarpiņi, gave away all his property to his relatives and friends, to become an ascetic. Thus deprived of their share, they followed the Lord, serving him perseveringly, in the hope of material reward. The Lord, however, had now nothing to bestow. Dharana, the ruler of the Nāgakumāras, and a devotee of Lord, felt a desire to fulfil their hope. The earth and everything on it having been given away already, Dharana gave them land outside the usual realm of mortals, on the slopes of Mount Vaitādhya, that mythological mountain range which traverses Bharatakşetra from east to west, being embraced by the Ganges and the Sindhu respectively. The land being 10 yojana above the ground, and inaccessible to ordinary man, Dharaņa also bestowed on the two princes 48,000 ‘vidyās”, enabling them to walk through the air and on water and to perform other miraculous feats. Thus, outfitted, they settled on Mount Vaitādhya with their kith and kin, and founded each a row of cities on the northern and southern slope respectively, directly below the cities of the Vyantara gods. Dharaṇa then installed Nami and Vinami as the rulers of the semidivine ‘Vidyādharas', by which name they and their followers became known, Nami ruling in the south, and Vinami in the north.
Each of these two rulers was the lord of eight 'Vidyādhara
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