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A COMPREHENSIVE HISTORY OF JAINISM
the hope that educated readers would pay all respect to this Mahāpurāna and make arrangements for the availability of a sufficient number of copies. From v. 28 to the end the prasasti was the work of by Lokasena. We are told by him that the work was consecrated at Bankāpura in Saka 820 when Akālavarșa, i.e., Rāstrakūta Krsna II was on the throne and Samanta Lokāditya was governing the region around that town. Premi suggests that Guņabhadra was probably not alive at that time and the work was completed much earlier.
Like his guru, Guņabhadra was also a very accomplished poet. In this work he has written about all the Tīrtharkaras except Rsabha and other great men of Jaina mythology. The story of Rāma, narrated in chaps. 67-8 of this poem, is a deliberate distortion of the story of Vālmīki. Dasaratha here, like the Dasaratha Jātaka, is painted as the king of Vārāṇasī. Sītā here is the daughter of Mandodarī, the wife of Rāvana. Rāma's mother is one Subālā, and Laksmana is the son of Kaikeyi. The story told in the Adbhuta Rāmāyana is similar to that narrated by Guņabhadra. The author has also made several changes in his treatment of the story of the other Hindu epic, the Mahābhārata. Karna is here painted as the real son of Pāņdu who, we are told, committed intercourse incognito with the virgin Kunti (23.109 ff.). Karna, who was abandoned by his mother, was later rescued by king Aditya (the name is significant) who, afterwards asked his barren wife Rādhā to bring him up (23.112). He further informs us that the system of prājāpatya marriage started in ancient India with the marriage of Pāņdu and Kunti (23.115). The examples of such distortions can be easily multiplied, but unlike other Jaina poets, Gunabhadra has the frankness to ask his readers to consult the original work for details (25.117). The story of Jivandhara, as told in chap. 75, is quite interesting, and later writers both in Sanskrit and Tamil wrote on it.
Svayambhū, like Vimala and Ravisena, wrote on the Rāma story. The name of his work is Paumacariyu,92 and is written in the Apabhramśa language. In the very opening stanza of the first Sandhi of his work the poet declares that he has taken on the narration of the Rāma story having kept the Arșa in view. The colophons of all the parvans of Ravişeņa's Padmapurāņa begin with it: ityārșe śrī ravişenācāryaprokte padmapurāņe. This makes it clear that Svayambhū's reference pertains to that work. Elsewhere in Svayambhu's work (1.2.9) we are told that he has embarked upon such a vast theme
