Jain Shwetambar Conference Herald 1915 Book 11 Jain Itihas Sahitya Ank

Author(s): Mohanlal Dalichand Desai
Publisher: Jain Shwetambar Conference

Page 21

Narrative Literature of the Jainas.
whose literary culture was small, and for people whose culture was still smaller. It appears that the learning and the literary taste of the Bauddha monks sank lower and lower during the middle ages, till at last Buddhism disappeared from the Indian soil, whereas the Jainas by their learning in all the shastras and by their high proficiency in Sanskrit and Prakrit poetry assured themselves the great influence they had won amongst the cultivated caste of the merchants as well as amongst that of the Kshatriyas, and especially at the courts of the rulers of North-Western India. Hence it is not at all astonishing, that the Jainas became, what they continued to be down to very recent times, viz. the best storytellers of India. A huge mass of folk-tales, either in their original form or developed to novels and to romances, is contained in their commentaries, in their Kathakoshas, and in their Charitas. These works should be consulted by the students of folk-lore before all and in preference to Bauddha books and to compilations made in our days in India by Indians or by Europeans.
227
In order to show what I just have said, I here give another story, which occurs in the Nandi-sutra, and several times in Haribhadra's Upadeshapada as well in the Antarakathasangraha. I quote it here from उपदेशपद. प्रथम भाग. पालिताणा. संवत् १९६५, सन १९०९, page २१९ and १९३, and I subjoin the Gujarati version given in the edition. The stanza, commented upon, runs thus:
+ पुंत्त सवत्ति माया डिंभग पइमरणमज्झए सत्था । किरियाभावे भागा दो पुत्तो बेइ णो माया ॥ ९५ ॥
After a Prakrit narrative, in which the story of the wise judgment together with three other tales is contained in a frame story, the commentary explains this stanza at page 23 as follows.
Here and in the following texts Icorrect the misprints and one or two wrong readings.