Jain Agam Sahitya

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

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Allegory in the English Literature the interwined branches of a creeper, "As the great fruit of a bread-fruit tree, held by its stalk, hangs down, so he hung there, feet upwards, head downwards. And yet another even greater danger threatens him there. In the middle of the well he perceived a great, mighly dragon, and at the edge of the lid of the well he saw a black, six-mouthed and twelve-footed giant elephant slowly approaching. In the branches of the tree which covered the well, swarmed all kinds of dreadfui-looking bees, preparing honey. The honey drips down and is greedily drunk by the man hanging in the well. For he was not weary of existence, and did not give up hope of life, though white and black mice gnawed the tree on which he hung.
The forest is the sariis ära, the beast of prey are the diseases, the hideous giantess is old age, the well is the body of beings, the dragon at the bottom of the well is time, the creepers in which the man is caught are the hope of life, the six-mouthed and twelve-footed elephant is the year with six seasons and twelve months, the mice are the days and nights, and the drops of honey are sensual lappiness.
Though this parable corresponds with the Jain view of life it was probably the Buddhistic versions of the parable which paved the way for it to the West. This story also appears in the fifth chapter of the Striparvå of the Mohābhārata. Ernst Kuhn has traced throughout all the literatures of the world the “circulation of this truly non-sectarian parable which has served for the edification of Brāhmanas. Jainas, Buddhists. Mohammedans, Christians and Jews."
"Dhūrtākhyāna' the well known satire written by Haribhadra, one of the most distinguished and prolific Jain writers, ridicules the stories of the Hindu cpics and Purāņas.
Siddharşi's 'Upamitibhavaprapancakatha' is the first elaborate and extensive allegory in Indian literature, followed two centuries later by Krsna Misra's great allegory, 'Prabodhacandrodaya.'
Somaprabha, the younger contemporary of Hemchandra, wrote Jiva-manah-karana-santāpa-kathā (The story of conversation between Soul, Mind, and Senses) which is an elaborately worked out allegory of 105 stanzas.
The vast ocean of Jain literature has a rich treasure of precious gems of allegory which we can be legitimately proud of.