Jain Stories 02

Author(s): Mahendramuni, K C Lalwani
Publisher: A B Jain Shwetambar Terapanth Samaj

Page 18

XVI
Indian history, which, as it stands at present, is lopsided and unbalanced because of its exclusive reliance on the IndoAryan sources, to the total exclusion of Sramana sources Some lesser known Jaipa scholars have made a juvenile attempt at this reconstruction, but it has yet to gain a wider acceptance We get also some glimpses of the history of the Jaina church through some of these stories. For instance, we have the story of Kesi-Gautama in the Uraradhi ajana, being respectively the stalwarts of the church of Parsva and that of Mahavira After a fraok discussion between the two, Kesi and his followers took shelter in the church of Mahavira It is thus certain that the Jaipa church became voited at the time of Mahavira.
Manymore things could have been written about these short stories, but I am afraid, an introduction to a book is not an appropriate place for this So long, this vast store-house remained confined to Prakrit and Sanskrit so that it was not available to the common man Sparingly, it was used by a monk or a nun to illustrate a point here and there, but its wide use was not possible. About a quarter century back, it occured to some people that this material should be presented through the medium of modern Indian languages, notably Hindi, which the vast majority of the Jaidas understand But who was to do this ? For while some of the Jaina monks were well-read in Prakrit and Sanskrit, their proficiency in Hindi was not high, while the usual Hindi story writers were not acquainted with this field in Prakrit or Sanskrit which they did not know At this stage, Mun! Mahendrakumarji Pratham stepped 10 to present a large number of Jaina stories verbatimi in plain Hindı. Ten parts of these stories as retold by him appeared in print, about 100 pages or more in each part in double crown size, by 1961, and another 15 by 1971, so that the Mupi has about 3,000 pages in print to his credit Provided his indifferent health permits, he desires to raise it to 10,000 pages which, he is sure enough, is a pretty easy job Since the Muni's works have been published, but quite independently of them, one or two writers have retold some Jaipa stories through the medium of Hindi and Bengali by making use of modern