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GENERAL EDITOR'S NOTE
In the Jaina tradition Rāma has been called Padma also and so by Padmacarita or Paumacariya, Rāmacarita is meant. Allured by the great popularity of the Rāma-legend the Jaina poets also based their works upon it. Among these Vimalasūri is the pioneer. His Paumacariyaṁ is the first Rāmāyaṇa in the Jaina tradition and also the first epic written in Prakrit. His work has been the source for the later Jaina writers, on the Rāmāyaṇa, like Ravisena, Svayambhū, Śīlācārya and Hemacandra. Apart from the salient features of the Jaina religion Vimalasūri's epic contains enough cultural material pertaining to the contemporary life.
The present work is the approved thesis of Dr. K. R. Chandra. He worked on this subject for nearly four years as a Research Scholar of the Institute, first under its eminent ex-Director Dr. H. L. Jain, and then under the present Director and obtained his Ph. D. Degree from the Bihar University.
Dr. Chandra has divided his work in two parts. In the first part he has given a resume of the narrative materials in the Paumacariya and in the second he has dealt with its cultural and literary aspects. The author has duly classified and lucidly narrated the intervening stories. He has compared and contrasted the Rāma-Story as found in Vimalasūri on one hand and in Vālmīki and Tulsi on the other. The author endorses Vimalasūri's claim that he has purged the traditional Rāma-story of its lies—the irrational exaggerations-and cleared the characters of blemishes. One wonders whether the replacement of the mythical and unbelievable feats of the vānaras and the rākşasas by the equally unbelievable supernatural powers of the Vidyādharas
