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Early fainism
nal purposes. In this background it comes as a somewhat pleasant surprise when two monks are depicted as behaving in an ideal fashion in relation to their fellow human beings. Thus Gujasukumāra the hero of Antakrt III.8 does not lose his balance of mind even when fatally struck by the father of the girl wbo was to have been married to him but was not; similarly, Arjuna, the hero of Antakyt VI-3, who when possessd by a yakşa had tortured citizens of Rājagrha in various ways but when rid of the malady became a monk, did not lose his balance of mind even when these citizens of Rājagrha would harass him in all sorts of ways. / In Cajasukumarastory there is also related the moving incident of Kșsna cleverly relieving an old weakling of the burden of the task of carrying a load of bricks from the street to the inside of his house; later on, Gajasukumāra's preceptor says to Krsna that in attainiog mokşa Gajasukumāra was assisted by his prospective father-in-law who struck him fatally just as in unburdening himself of the heavy task that old weakling was assisted by Krşņa. ] This relative absence of a depiction of positive moral action on the part of a social man is already striking in itself but it is particularly so in view of the fact that such a depiction is a most conspicuous feature of the Buddhist Jātaka-stories all aimed at demonstrating how Buddha in an earlier life acted as a noble hero in relation to his fellow-beings (they also covering cases when Buddha was an animal-hero of an animal-mass).
In this connection Thatadharmakathă deserves a separate treatment. For unlike U pusakadaśa, Antakrddaśa, Anultaraupa pātikadaśa and Vipakaśruta it is not a text with a common thread running through the entire body of its inventories. It rather is of the form of a miscellaneous collection of bare similes, illustrative stories and religious narratives. Of these, the both similes and illustrative stories have little about them which might be construed as something typically Jaina; what has happened is that they have been marked with a Jaina stamping suitably as a result of drawing from them a moral appropriate for a Jaina-particularly a Jaina monk. Howe, ver, this performance is noteworthy for one reason. For it is a testimony to the Jaina author's capacity to portray the details of secular life and to draw upon the currents of secular wisdom flowing all around them. It should therefore suffice for our present purpose if we just mention the subject-matter of the similes and the illustrative stories in question. Thus the similes cover four chapters in all and as follows:
Ch. VI. The simile of gourd-bowl which sinks down to the bottom of
water when heavy with clay-smearing and comes up to the surface
when rid of this clay-smearing. Ch. X - The simile of moon which waxes during one half of the month
and wanes during the other half.
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