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PREFACE
ALMOST from childhood, I had an aptitude for hearing and knowing the A Purāņic and Epic stories. When I was fourteen-fifteen, and could read a bit, I became a pupil of a monk of the Sthānakavāsi sect of the Jaina Svetāmbara community. Born in a Rājput family devoted to Siva and Vişnu, and brought up under the influence of Hindu samskäras in my childhood, quite instinctively I looked upon Rāma and Krşņa as the divinity and addressed Siva as the Parameśvara. A gradual change came on me after my becoming a Jaina monk. The monks, according to their religious prescriptions, visit different places and preach religious and ethical principles to their audience by narrating stories. The Jainas in villages are not quite conversant with the ideology and principles of their religion; and ordinarily they are accustomed to listen to the various topics of the Mahābhārata, Rāmāyaṇa, Bhāgavata etc. which are commonly popular with the orthodox Hindu community. Being a minor community, the Jainas, on many occasions, it is quite natural, are influenced by the saṁskāras and ideas of the other Hindus who form an overwhelmingly majority community with dominating social position. To guard against such an influence and to confirm them in the Jaina faith, the Jaina monks often criticise the inconsistent and unnatural details of the Purāņas, Mahābhārata, Rāmāyaṇa etc, in the presence of their Srāvakas whom they want to convince about the hollowness of Vedic and Purāņic tales and whose faith in Jainism they want to nourish by didactic tales and religious sermons. Literary example, as we know, is a powerful instrument for the moulding of character. To impress on the mind of the masses the specific ethical and religious principles, the religious teachers and preachers, all over the world and from times immemorial, have used the legends and tales which provide the hearers with examples and principles which they can easily follow. The Jaina monks are in no way an exception.
After attending such sermons of Jaina monks, my instinctive inclinations were being gradually changed, and my attachment for Jaina traditions and tales became deeper and deeper. As a rule, the Sthānakavāsi monks possessed no liking, worth noting, for the study of any branch of literature. They were least acquainted with Sanskrit and Prākrit languages, nor did they care to study them. They had, consequently, no idea of the vast and varied heritage of Jaina literature enriched by the remarkable contributions of eminent Svetāmbara and Digambara authors. At the most, they were conversant with and repeatedly read a few late, vernacular texts such as Dhālasagara and Dhanyasālibhadra-caüpāi which are of quite ordinary merits. After
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