________________
The Prakrit and Apabhramsa Rāmāyaṇas
189
and Śridāmā as the chief queens. Lakşmaņa, like all Vāsudevas, had sixteen thousand. (s) Rationalizations
The monkeys and monsters typyfied by Sugriva, Hanumat, Rāvana and their followers are basically mythical elements of the original legend which underlay VR. From the familiar human world of the first two Kāņdas of VR, we suddenly enter quite a strange world of humanized beasts and monsters of the latter Kāndas. These mythical elements did not fit in with the Jain view of the world which has a strong rationalistic strain. And from a commonsense point of view too, defeating of powerful man-eating nonsters by crude beasts and mere humans was quite absurd, unless one conceived it on a purely mythical or divine plane. So the Jain tradition introduced numerous changes in the source-version to make it acceptable to rationality and commonsense, even at the unrealized cost of losing some of its imaginative and weird appeal. The Vānaras and Rākşasas were turned by the Jainas into Vidyādharas These latter were human beings that had acquired. through austerities and mortification, superhuman or magical powers, which enabled them to fly in the sky, to assume various forms, to create and use magic missiles etc. The Vidyādhara dynasty which flourished in the Vānara-dvipa ('Moukey Island) and which adopted the monkey as a dynastic emblem was known as the Vānaras, while the Vidyādharas who established a kingdom in the Raksasa-dvipa came to be known as Rākşasas. Far from there being any beastiliness or cannibalism about them, they were rather highly intelligent and developed humans. And the Jain tradition has systematically used this device to rationalize the Rāma-story. Thus Sugriva, Hanūmat and Rāvaņa are all Vidvā - dhara kings. As the crossing of the ocean was no problem for the Vidyādhara's, the incident of layiog a bridge over the ocean finds no place in the Jain account. But instead we find there Samudra and Setu as two Vidyādhara Chiefs, loyal to Rāvana and hostile to Rāma, ruling at Velandhara city in the midst of the ocean. They attack the forces of Rāma and Laksmana which
