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VI : Sources and Innovations :
It has been recorded by the author that he composed the MRA in response to a request by his follower named Bilhaņa who expressed his keen desire to listen to a detailed account of the life-story of saintly king Nami, one of the four canonized Pratyeka-buddhas of Jainism. The colophone of the MRA, too, confirms this by giving the name "Namicaritra” as an alternative title to the work.2 Thus, Jinabhadrasūri seems to regard the MRA as a life-story of King Nami, the Pratyeka-buddha of Jainism
The story of king Nami is a very old one in that the Uttaradhyayana Sūtra, one of the four Müla Sutras of the Jain Canon, devotes the whole of the ninth chapter of sixty-two gathas to an account of this king's renunciation, and is named 'Nami-pravrajyā,' In the eigth chapter of the same work, king Nami is referred to in passing in gātha No. 45, along with the three other Pratyeka-buddhas, viz., Karakandu, Dummuba, and Naggai, We also find an account of a Nimi (ie. Nami) in Nimi-jataka (No. 541), since he is canonized as one of the four Pacceka Buddhas in Buddhist tradition too.
The anonymous Prakrit work named the Bharahesgara-bahubalisajjbaya lists 'Mayaņareha' (Skt. Madanarekha) as one of the virtuous ladies in its second chapter called 'Sadhvyadhikara'. But we have no information about the author and hence none about his date. The story must have been very old since Madanarekha is listed as one of the sisters (bhainlo) of Ācarya Thulibhadda (Skt. Sthulibhadra).
It is in the commentaries of the Uttaradhyayana Sutra that the story of Madanarekhā, the mother of king Nami, first appears as an essential background of the story of the king. There are at least twenty-one commentaries, published or unpublished, dating from the sixth to the seventeenth
1. MRA, Intro. vs. 37 :
प्रत्येकबुद्धनमिराजऋषेश्चरित्रं, श्रोतु सविस्तरमतोव समुत्सुकस्य । श्रीबिरहणस्य खलु तस्य
विशुद्धबुद्धेरभ्यर्थनाभिरुचितं रुचिरं व्यधायि ॥ 2. Op. cit., p. 40 :
इति श्रोजिनभद्रसरिविरचितायां मदनरेखाख्यायिकायां श्रीमन्नमिचरित्रापराभिधायां मुदका
ai.... 3. Cf. Jtk, Vol. VI. pp. 53-68. 4. Cf, BBS. Chap. II. vs. 1 :
सुलसा चंदणबाला मनोरमा मयणरेह दमयंती । नमयासुंदरी सोया, नंदा भद्दा सुभदा य॥ 5. CF, SA, folio, 28 under 'Silavadadi-guru-smaraṇam' in 'Rātri-pratikramaņam'.
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