Jainas in History of Indian Literature

Author(s): Jinvijay
Publisher: ZZZ Unknown

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JAINAS IN INDIAN LITERATURE
§ 6) Kavyas and Mahākāvyas, too, have been composed by Jaina poets.
An epic poem like Magha's S'isupālavadha is the Mahākāvya Dharmasarmābhyudaya of Harichandra (edited in Kavyamālā, 8, 1888), in which the story of Dharmanatha, the fifteenth Tirthakara, is told. Harichandra who must have lived after 900 A.D.1 is probably also the author of the Jivandharacampu, in which the legend of Jivandhara is told after Gunabhadra's Uttara-purana. Another mahākāvya is the Neminirvana of Va gbhata (edited in Kāvyamālā 56, 1896), treating of the legend of Neminatha. The same legend is treated in the Nemiduta of Vikrama (edited in Kavyamālā, Part II, pp. 85-104), a Samasyapurana, the last line of each stanza being taken from Kalidasa's Meghaduta. An older work of that kind is Jinasena's Pārsvābhyudaya, a poetical biography of Parsvanatha, in which the whole Meghaduta is included, one or two lines of every stanza being taken from Kālidāsa's poem. Other epic poems are the Yasodharacarita of Kanakasena Vādirāja (11th cent.), the Mrgavaticaritra of Maladhari Devaprabha (13th cent). an interesting version of the stories of Udayana and his wives Vasavadattā and Padmavati3
2
1 See E. Hultzch, Indian Antiquary, 35, p. 268.
2 The Meghaduta as embodied in the Parsvabhyudaya with the Commentary of Mallinatha, with a literal English Translation, ed. by K. B. Pathak, Poona, 1894.
3 A Jaina version of the Udayana story is also found in the Kumarapalapratibodha of Somaprabha, s. P.D. Gune, Pradyota, Udayana and Śrepika-a Jain Legend: Annals of the Bhandarkar Institute, Vol. II, pp. 1 ff.