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The Magic Bird-Heart
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11.6. Version I is important in so far as it presents the earliest occurrence of the Magic Bird-Heart12 motif. Version II is the earliest to bear a family-likness to the basic outline of the nonIndian versions. But Version III is the closest to the latter in the Over-all structure as well as in most of the significant features and details (excepting, of course, the introductory section). The one most striking difference between Version II and Version III is the donkey-transformation figuring only in the latter.
This feature of the tale developed between the tenth cent. (the date of Version II) and the twelfth cent. (the date of Version III). It cannot be an innovation introduced by Ratnaprabha because there is every indication to believe that he was making use of a previously current popular tale. It remains to be investigated whether the tale with the donkey-transformation sequel was taken outside India after the twelfth cent. or a century or so earlier. Version I and II also clearly presuppose earlier popular sources,
But in order to be anywhere nearer the solution of these and similar problems, we are first required to collect all the versi that are available from old Indian literatures and from oral traditions all over India, and work eut their complex interrelationships. The versions here reported would now provide very valuable evidence for the theory of the Indian origin of the Magic Bird Heart.
Postscript 1: There are about a dozen Old Gujaratt Rāsās based on Ratnaprabha's version (i.e. No. III): AmarasenaVayarasena Rāsa by Kamalaharsa (1533), by Tejapāla (1687). There are soma nine further Rāsās based on Hamsāuli (i.e. No. IV) : Vatsarāja-Hamsarāja Rāsa by Mānasimha (1618), HainsarājaVatsarāja-Rāsa by Jinodaya (1623) and Virabhāņa-Udayabhāņa-Rāsa by Kulasāgara (or Keśava) (1688).13
Further investigation in the subject shows that the earliest Jain version is found in the story of Kāștha-Muni in the Āvasyaka Cūrņi dated about the fifth cent. A. D. This tale of Kāştha
