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THB SVBTĀMBARA LITBRA TURE
209
century. It has several popular stories, which were known previously, as for example the story of Salibhadra, that of Simhakumāra and also of Dhavala, etc. Some of the stories are frankly crotic, as for example that of prince Tosali and Sundarī.Here we find the prince making love with a married lady, and they are further represented as living like husband and wife, in a different kingdom. It appears that Jineśvara himself approved of such love-affairs,' A story has been told, which proves that there was intense rivalry between the Śyetambaras and the Digambaras in the 11th century.8 Another story', tells us about the very intense rivalry between the Śvetāmbaras and the Buddhists. In another story, Jineśvara attacks the orthodox Brahmins, who blindly follow the teachings of Smộti texts. 10 Such anti-Brāhmaṇical passages are also found elsewhere in this work.11 Needless to say, such stories were deliberately invented by the Jain writers to taroish the reputation of the Brahmins, before the general public. As we have already said, the Jains had to pay a very heavy price for indulging in such anti-Brāhmanism.
A few other works of Jineśvara are known, but they mostly deal with Jain doctrinal matters and therefore, we need not discuss them in the limited space of the present works,
The Jñānapañcamikathals of Maheśvara was written certainly before V.S, 1109, as we have a manuscript, of that work, from Jaisalmer, dated in that year.1We do not know much about this Jain writeris, except the fact that he was a disciple of one Sajjana Upadhyāya. As observed by J. C. Jain 16, this work of Mahesvara was heavily influenced both by the language of the Ardha-Māgadhi canon and also that of the Apabhramsa language. The work has altogether 2800 verses and ten stories, which glorify the 5th day of the bright fortnight of the month of Kārtika, which was known as jñāna or saubhagya pañcami. This particular date was considered sacred by the Jains and we have many works?",
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