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BANDYOPADHYAY : A STUDY ON THE JAINA-PURANAS
97
A list of the available Carita-kavyas - biographical Purānas narrating the Mahābhārata-Story is given below : Name of the Works Author
Date of Composition Pandava-Carita
Devabhadra Sūri 13th century A.D. Mrgāvati-Carita
Devabhadra Sūri 13th century A.D. Pandava-Carita Deva Vijaya Gani 1660 A.D. Sanat-kumara-Carita . Haribhadra
12th century A.D. Pandava-Carita
Devaprabha
12th century A.D.
The Purāņas Relating to the Life-story of the Sixtythree Great
Personalities (Tri-Şaşți-Salākā-Purusa-Caritam)
The Jaina-poets, besides taking the Rāmāyana, the Mahābhārata and the ancient mythologies as the principal subject of their compositions, adopted the life-story of the sixtythree great personalities famous as the Salākā Puruşas to compose poetical works with them. These sixtythree Salakāpurusas are the 24 Tirthankaras, 12 Chakravartins, 9 Vasudevas, 9 Valadevas and 9 Vişnu-dvesins (the enemy of Lord Visnu). Among the Thirthankaras - Mahāvīra or Vardhamāna (the 24th Tirthankara), śāntinātha (the 16th Tirthankara) Neminātha (the 21st Tirthankara) and Pārsvanātha (the 23rd Tirthankara) were the principal characters in most of the poetical works belonging to this class. The tendency of writing poetical works in this line was prevalent from the 10th to the 18th centuries, still it attained the highest glorious position in the 12th century, when the most talented poet Hemacandra composed his most famous poetical workTrişasti-Salākā-Puruşa Carita in 1088-1172 A.D.
Hemacandra was a minister at the royal court of the king Jayasimha Siddharāja and his successor Kumārapāla in Gujrat. By his influence Jainism became the state religion. Though a Jain, his reverence to Brāhmanism was not less. He wrote books on almost every branch of literature in Sanskrit and Prakrit. His Trisasti-Salaka-Purusa-Carita occupies a position of high dignity in Indian literature. His skill in characterisation, in arrangements and description of the incidents, in performing variety of sentiments, style and figures of speech etc. have been highly praised by the critics. In this poetical work Hemacandra proves that he possesses genius of great versatility.
Krishnacaitanya writes - 'Hemacandra was not only a Schoolman, but a great literary craftsman as well. There are significant
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