Jain Agam Sahitya

Author(s): K R Chandra
Publisher: Prakrit Text Society Ahmedabad

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Allegory in the English Literature
the Sangha. Those monks and nuns who are not content with. pretty well keeping the five great vows, propogate the vows and they alone attain liberation.
This story belongs to the category of international literature, E. Leumann has pointed out a corresponding story in Matthew (25.14-30) and Luke (19.12-27) of the New Testament. Gustav Roth traces its origin in Hebrew Gospel which is of greater antiquity than Matthew and Luke. In the present story one finds a few words of praise for women. This shows the narrator's broad democratic outlook.
The interesting story of Malli, the nineteenth Tirthankara, is a very obvious and striking allegory. Princess Malli of wop drous and incomparable beauty compared her body to the gold statue in the 'puzzling house' that she had got constructed in order to bring home to the six wooing princes the frailty of human body. The puzzling house' represents the world of temptations. The fairlooking, filthy and perishable human body is compared to the gold statue which is stenchent and loathsome inside,
The most important story of the Nāyādhammakahão is the story of Avarakamkā. We are told that in her previous birth Draupadi (Dovai) was the daughter of a merchant of Campā and her name was Sukumārikā. Once she saw a prostitute enjoying the company of five young men at a Bohemian club of the city called Lalitā. Sukumārikā thereupon made a nidāna (claiming reward of penance in the next birth) to marry five husbands in her next life and accordingly she was born as Draupadi who as a result of her nidāna married five Pāņdavas. The story is spun round the concept of transmigration of soul which is a favourite theme in Jain legends.
Āinna' (The Noble Horse) is mariner's fairy tale describing the fate of the winged horses as determined by their susceptibility to sense-organs. Those who are conquered by the sense-organ of hearing and tempted by sweet voice are like the partridge caught in the net. They who are subdued by the sense-organ of smelling and are tempted by various sweet smells are like a snake from a hole who gets caught up to become miserable. They who are