Jain Journal 2004 04

Author(s): Jain Bhawan Publication
Publisher: Jain Bhawan Publication

Page 26

THE ADIPURĀŅA: THE GENESIS OF HUMAN HISTORY
Hampa Nagarajaiah The Adipurāna, ‘Lorebook of the Beginning’, narrates vividly socio-cultural aspects of the earliest times of human history. Incidentally it brings out socio-anthropological and metaphysical conceptualism of various philosophical theories and their development in the context of evolution of human society including the Jaina society. Jinasena's eloquent descriptin of the concept of cosmology and the genesis of Jaina history are principally based on the facts consistently maintained by Jaina religious tradition. The Adipurāņa, Jaina version of the Universal History, has a practical significance as a repository of Lore and exemplification which outweighs such much older texts.
The Adipuraņa must be clearly understood before Jaina way of spiritual life, tradition and religion could be adequately grasped. The extraordinary epic is almost an epitome of Jaina culture and civilization which has assimilated the socio-cultural currents of its contemporary period. The Jaina order has its own style and method of recording past events. The Adipurāņa is an ideal representation of that venerable hoary tradition. It is Kathā and Itihasa-Purāņa, containing archaic legendary tales of the great personalities with historical knowledge. “People get gems from the ocean, and similarly the readers get gemlike precious lessons from the Purana' (Jinasena, Adipurāņa, Parvan 2, 'verse 116].
A forerunner of a great literary style and system, cognoscente Jinasena was responsible for the standardization of the Purāņa format. Imparting ahimsā cult of non-injury for over eighty years, the centurian Jinasenācārya heralded a socio-cultural, politico-spiritual and literary revolution by authoring the Adipurāņa, also known as the Purvapurāņa. During the glorious epoch of the Rāşțrakūța's, Ācārya Jinasena (765-865), an encyclopedist, planned and brilliantly executed the methodical documentation of social, economic, cultural and ethical life of human beings, in the light of Jaina perspective. In the process,