Life and Stories of Jaina Savior Parcvanatha

Author(s): Maurice Bloomfield
Publisher: Maurice Bloomfield

Page 12

Life and Stories of Pārçvanātha
Were it not for the other chronicles of Pārçvanātha, whose manuscripts are scattered thru Indian and European libraries, the text which I treat here would call for a complete translation and elaboration. Yet such a treatment, undertaken without reference to the parallel versions, would remain not much less fragmentary than that presented here. For these versions, in the light of other experience, would not only clarify one another reciprocally, but they suggest a synoptic edition of the Pārcvanātha Caritras as the only ultimately satisfactory scholarly end.
Operations along this line are precluded by the present world conditions. In lieu thereof it has seemed to me well to promote a preliminary familiarity with the Pārsvanātha cycle. The body of this essay consists of a full digest of the frame story and the illustrative stories which are boxed in, in the usual exigent Hindu fiction manner. The frame story contains the fullest extant account of the Jain Savior' Pārçvanātha's life, preceded by a series of nine pre-births, beginning with the two hostile brothers Marubhūti (the ultimate Pārçva) and Kamatha (the ultimate Asura Meghamālin). These prebirths are described with the meticulous care of a chronicle of real life, and with the sincerity of a devout believer. The hostility of the two brothers is carried on thru all pre-births; in each of them the incarnation of Kamatha kills the incarnation of Marubhūti, until Marubhūti's soul ripens into that of the Savior Pārçva, and until Meghamālin is converted to the worship of Pārçva.
The intercalated stories count among the best of Jaina fiction. One of these, namely, · Vikrama's adventures in the body of a parrot,' I have translated in full and elaborated on pp. 22-43 of my paper,' On the art of entering
See p. 1 ff.