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A COMPREHENSIVE HISTORY OF JAINISM
(Bhinmal). Durgasvāmin was Siddharși's teacher, and is praised by him chiefly on account of his exemplary piety. Both teacher and pupil had been ordained by Gargasvāmin, about whom we are not told anything more. The highest praise is however reserved for Haribhadra, who as we learn from the praśasti was the source of his inspiration. It must, however, not be supposed that Haribhadra was a contemporary of Siddharși. The former lived some two centuries earlier, as is indicated in the Kuvalayamālā written in Saka 700.
In the Prabhāvakacarita?4 we have a romantic account of Siddharși's conversion from Buddhism which has, however, been rightly rejected by Jacobi." That work further represents Siddharși as a cousin of Māgha, the author of the Siśubālavadha, which is surely impossible as Māgha lived in the mid-seventh century AD as his grandfather served under king Varmalāta, who is definitely known from an inscription to have lived in AD 625.
The work of Siddharși is an elaborate and extensive allegory. Probably the earliest specimen of such an allegory is the unnamed play of Asvaghoșa, discovered from Central Asia. This work of Siddharsi is however the first extensive allegory in Indian literature and it was followed two centuries later by Krsna Miśra's great allegory Prabodhacandrodaya. Siddharși's work is a narrative consisting of a series of birth stories, i.e. the hero of all stories is a single person in different births. This is an ancient device known to the earlier Buddhist and Jaina writers, including Haribhadra whose Samarāiccakahā is openly acknowledged by Siddharși78 as his model.
Siddharşi proposes to explain the mundane career of the Soul (jiva) under the name Samsārijiva from the lowest stage of existence to the final liberation, but only six births are narrated a few others sketched, and the rest summarily taken cognizance of. In the lives fully narrated, Samsārijiva is described as being under the influence of four cardinal passions (krodha in the third Prastāva, māna in the fourth, māyā in the fifth, and lobha in the sixth); and to similarly governed by the five cardinal vices (himsă in the third, anrta in the fourth, steya in the fifth, abrahma in the sixth, parigraha in the seventh). Also in the Prastāvas are inserted allegorical stories which illustrate the baleful influence of the five senses, sparśana, rasana, ghrāņa, drsţi and śruti. The chief intention of the author was to illustrate the Jaina religion, not as dogmatist but as a moralist. The order followed by Siddharşi is to be found also in the Tattvārthādhigamasūtra,79 and the work has been compared to Pilgrim's Progress. 0 The
