Life and Stories of Jaina Savior Parcvanatha

Author(s): Maurice Bloomfield
Publisher: Maurice Bloomfield

Page 33

Introduction
19
pp. 66 ff.; Stevenson, Heart of Jainism, p. 313. In our Caritra, 7. 827 ff., Pārçva's servants are described verbally: 88 · A black, four-armed Yakşa, Pārçva by name, who was born at that Tīrtha, who carried as an umbrella the hood of a cobra, who had the mouth of an elefant, who had a tortoise as chariot, who held an ichneumon and a serpent in his two right arms, bhaktaḥ pārçve
bhavad vibhoh (became a devotee at the side of the Lord).' According to Hemacandra, Abhidhānacintāmaņi 43, Pārçvanātha has a servant bearing his own name. This is the Cvetāmbara view of Pārçvanātha's male attendant; see particularly, Burgess, Indian Antiquary, xii. 276.
According to another tradition, current among the Digambaras, Pārçva's male attendant is the serpentprince Dharaṇa (Dharaṇendra) whom Pārçva saver from the cruelty of Kamatha or Katha (see 6. 50-68); cf. Burgess, Indian Antiquary, xxxii, pp. 459-464. The Pārçva group reproduced there shows Dharaṇendra (riding on a tortoise). Burgess remarks on p. 463: ' Among the Digambara Jainas in the Kanarese district in Southern India, there appear, to be differences in the iconography, especially of the attendant Yakşas and goddesses (Yakṣiṇīs), compared with that of the Cvetāmbaras, as described by Hemacandra.' Of course, the present Caritra text takes the Çvetāmbara view.
Pārçva's female attendant, or Yakşiņi,39 is named Padmāvati. She is described in our Caritra 7. 828 as golden-complexioned; of distinguished might; having a kurkuța-serpent as chariot; holding in her two right hands a lotus and a noose, in her two left hands a fruit
* This is, as far as I know, the first verbal description published.
* Such female divine aids are known familiarly in Jaina literature as Çāsanadevi, Casanadevată, or Çāsanasundari; see p. 187 of this work.