Jainas in History of Indian Literature

Author(s): Jinvijay
Publisher: ZZZ Unknown

Page 22

JAINA AND POST-VEDIC LITERATURES
Faüsboll's edition), and again in the Uttarajjhayana Sutta (Adhy. XIV) of the Jainas. In all these texts the father in the Mahābhārata a Veda-studying Brāhmaṇa, in the Buddhist and Jaina versions a Purohita-recommends the Brāhmaṇic ideal, according to which a man should first study the Veda as a Brahmacārin, then fulfil the duties of a householder, and only in his old age retire to the woods to lead a hermit's life; while the son? shuns this ideal: seeing that the world is constantly harassed by death and old age, he prefers to retire from this world at once and to seek emancipation by following the ascetic ideal. It is just possible, that this poetical dialogue is either of Buddhist or of Jaina origin, and has come to be included in the Epic and Purāņic literature at some later time. But it seems to me more likely that it belongs to a much older stratum of ascetic literature, from which both the Buddhist and the Jaina, as well as the Epic and the Purāņic texts are derived.
The same applies to many other stories, ballads, dialogues, groups of verses and especially single gāthās, which we find (in different versions) both in Jaina and in Buddhist literature, and sometimes also in Epic or Purāņic texts. Thus we find in the Mahābhārata (XII 178, 2) the famous saying of King Janaka of Mithilā, after he had adopted ascetic life: “How boundless is my wealth, as I possess nothing! When Mithilā is on fire, nothing that is mine will be burnt.” The same verse occurs in the Jātaka Nr. 539, gāthā
1 in the Uttarajjhayana there are two sons.