Life and Stories of Jaina Savior Parcvanatha

Author(s): Maurice Bloomfield
Publisher: Maurice Bloomfield

Page 27

Introduction
13
6. 1343-1360: Life of Pārçvanātha, continued. 7. 1-7: Life of Pārçvanātha, continued. 7. 826-838; Life of Pārçvanātha, continued. 8. 358-393: Life of Pārçvanātha, concluded. His
nirvāņa.
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The prenatal history of Pārçva (Marubhūti) and Kamatha represents a type of fiction in which a pair of souls are held in relation to one another by the tie of love or hatred, thru a succession of parallel births. Professor Leumann has elaborated the story of Citta and Sambhūta (the Prākrit Bainbhadatta story) in two articles in vols. v and vi of the Vienna Journal of Oriental Studies. Here a pair of fond souls pass thru successive existences, until, in the end, one of them makes an abortive attempt to save the other from perdition. A faint suggestion of the same motif is found in the story of Brahmadatta, Kathās. 3. 27 ff.; 114. 17 ff. An impressive example of hatred in successive births is contained in the story of Sanatkumāra (Prākrit Sanamkumāra) in Pārçvanātha Caritra 6. 1011 ff.; Kathākoça, pp. 31 ff.; and Devendra's Prākrit version: 31 King Vikramayaças falls in love with Vişnuçrī, beautiful wife of the merchant Nāgadatta. The king's jealous wives kill her by sorcery. The king is grieved to the point of madness, until his chief men show him the festering, evil-smelling body of Vişnuçri. He turns ascetic, is reborn in heaven, falls thence, and is born again as the merchant Jinadharma. In the mean time Nāgadatta, dying in sore affliction, is reborn as the Brahman Agniçarman. Agniçarman, having turned ascetic, wanders to Rājagpha, the city of King Naravāhana. There also arrives Jinadharma. Agniçar
" See Jacobi, Ausgewählte Erzihlungen, pp. 20 ff.