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CONTRIBUTIONS TO LITERATURF, ETC.
81
images of Gommața and Pārsvanatha at Eelgola were brought from Lanka by Rama and Seeta; and that several bastis in Coorg were built by these heroes of epic India. 56
As there are Jaina versions of the Rāmāyaṇa so are there Jaina versions of the Mahabharata. One of the most important of them is the Harivamśa-Purāņa, by Jinasêna. It deals with ancient dynasties like the Kurus, the Pandavas and the Yadavas cast in Jaina moulds and devoted to Jaina worship. "The transferences and adaptations made in some of the stories, observes Rajendralal Mitra, "are remarkable and suggestive. For instance, the rape of Sita by Rāvaņa is transferred to the history of the Pandu brothers, whose wife Draupadi is said to have been carried away by one Padmanabha, King of Amarakankapura, who lived beyond the ocean, whence the Pandavas rescued her. Again, the story of the lac-house in which Duryodhana wished to assassinate the Pandus is described as a device adopted by Kṛṣṇa to elude from the army of Jarasandha which had pressed him very hard and was about to take him prisoner. For a right appreciation of the true bearing of the Hindu legends the accounts given in this work are of great value. "57
"9
In the vernacular garb, the Vikramārjuna Vijaya or more popularly called after the author, Pampa Bhārata, is the earliest extant version of the epic in Kannada. This Pampa is different from the author of the Rāmāyaṇa already quoted in extenso, and is distinguished by the epithet Adi Pampa" or the first Pampa. His first work was Adi Purana relating the history of Rşabha, the first Tirthankara, composed in 941 when the poet was thirty-nine years of age. In the estimation of Mr. Narasimhachār, this work is "unsurpassed in style among the Kanarese poets.' ."58 The distinctive features of the Pampa Bhārata are thus pointed out by Mr. E. P. Rice:
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a
56 Cf. Ep. Car. II Introd., p. 15; Rice, Coorg Inscriptions, Ep. Car. I Introd., p. 13
57 Rajendralal Mitra, Notices of Sanskrit MSS. VI Preface, pp. 4-5. 58 Cf. Rice (E. P.) op. cit., pp. 80-81
JXC--2528-11
