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point of view. It is practically the Jaina Mahārāstri and Apabhramsa version of the concerned Sanskrit narratives written by Hemacandra in his Parişista-parva.
ii) The first Prastāva of KumāPra is dedicated to the contemporary history of Gujarath. Muni Jinavijaya has aptly noted in his English introduction to KumāPra that, "the history of the two great personages (i.e. Kumārapāla and Hemacandra) in the present work is not only as much as, but is even less than their history given in such smaller and later works, as Prabhāvaka-carita
and Prabandha-cintāmani."12
iii) The 'Gurvāvali' given at the end is important from the point of the history of Tapāgaccha, a lineage of Svetāmbaras which has contributed a lot to Jaina literature.
All the important cities, mountains and places of pilgrimage in Gujarath are noted down at the end of the introduction of Muni Jinavijaya. A curious reader can go through it very easily. It is really creditable to Somaprabha that due to the detailed geographical data, given by him, we can co-relate the modern names of the places very easily. (viz. d4- 4 (p.21) is modern cita; Bouter-aff and taaff (p.18) is modern forsryda; nfsal (p.179) is modern Yistan; Triyah (p.442) is modern तारंगास्थानम् etc.).
Conclusion In Jaina tradition 'narration' or 'story-telling' is not mentioned as a separate 'art'. In the extensive list of 72 or 64 arts found in Jaina treatises, 'the art of narration is not enumerated. Narrations, fables, tales, allegories are always treated as an instrument or device for imparting religious teachings effectively. This fact is true about Kumāra, in every sense. The ethical and philosophical tenets comprise the central core of a story. Necessary details are woven around in narration form. The vows of a lay-votary (śrāvaka), its transgressions (aticāra), the passions (kasāyas), the bad effects of seven bad habits (sapta vyasanas) and the good effects of the religioethical virtues are described at length in almost each of the story. The chief characters of the stories listen to these sermons patiently and get overwhelmed with samvega, nirveda and accept partial vows or embrace initiation.
When a reader knows the certain end of the story beforehand his interest becomes lesser and lesser - this is the natural limitation of being an excellent narrative'. The stereotype beginning full of the names of the region, country, city, king, queen etc. compels a reader to omit that part of the story, with a great distaste.
But in spite of all these weak-points, we have to give three stars' out of five, to the narratives of KumāPra for the following reasons :
(i) It provides us a specimen of classical Jaina Mahārāstrī of the 12th century A.D. with a vocabulary full of deśya words, dhātvādeśas, popular idioms and sayings.
(ii) The religio-social interactions and happenings among all the layers of the Indian society are reflected in the narratives. These details are definitely different from the contemporary Sanskrit and Pali literature.
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