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18. THE TALE OF THE ROYAL MONK YAVA
1. It is intended to discuss here certain early Jaina versions of the tale of Yava and stress its basically folk-tale character by pointing out striking parallels with some folk-tales current today.
The illustrative tale of the royal monk Yava belongs to the very early Jaina tradition and in view of the Jātaka parallels, its origin is to be assigned to the common heritage of the Jaina Ardhamāgadhi literature and the Buddhist Pali literature.
It is alluded to in the Bhagavati Ārādhana of the Digambara tradition, and the Bhatta-parinnā (Panna) of the Svetāmbara canon. To stress for the monk the importance of studying the sacred texts the legendary tale of king Yava (or Yama) is referred to make the following point :
Even some random verse, proverbial, anecdotal or just a sort of doggeral, accidentally learnt, may prove so useful as to save one's life; then what to talk of studying the sacred texts ?
2. The outlines of the tale of Yava are given cryptically by Sanghadāsa in his Laghu-bhäsya or the Brhatkalpa-sūtra? (v. 1154). The verse tells us that the life of king Yava, the son of Anila, is instructive with regard to the merits of religious studies. Verses 1155-1156 and 1161 give the catch-words for the leading persons and events in the life-story of Yava. Verses 1157-1159 are the ones that played a key role in that story. Verse 1160 gives the moral, and should rather follow v. 1161 as the story's conclusion. This point combined with the facts that (a) v. 1157-1160 are closely similar to the five verses in the Mūsika Jātaka (no. 373) and (b) the metrical structure of these verses is somewhat archaic, shows beyond any doubt that the verses formed the core of the old original taley, which was adopted later with requisite adaptations by the Jainas and Buddhist for their own purpose.
The tale, given in full by Kşemakīrti in his commentary on the Brhat-kalpa-sūtrat (hereinafter BKS) is principally as follows :
