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to appreciate the beauty of personification and the underlying experience of wordly happiness and its futility.
(c) After having put forth the prima facie arguments in favour of a life of free love through the character of Parivrajika, and having thoroughly refuted them through the agency of the character of Madanarekha, the poet, as though, takes a sigh of relief towards the end of the second Ucchvāsa for having successfully waged the battle against the best of the army of the hedonists, and expresses his joy and satisfaction at his feat on behalf of the character of Madanarekba.14
(iii) Poetic relishes (rasas) and descriptions :
It has been pointed out by Dr. K. K. Handiqui15 that most of the Sanskrit prose-romances of the tenth and eleventh centuries were composed by Jaina writers, who were eager to expound and glorify their religion, and may be said to have introduced a religious element into this branch of literary composition, and that there is an increased tendency to mix prose with verse. Although Jinabhadrasūri came a couple of centries later, these remarks apply to him in toto.
In the matter of stylistic patterns and treatment of conventional topics, Jinabhadrasūri follows the dictates of the veteran critic and aesthetician Anandavardhanals and chooses to adopt whatever he finds beautiful in his glorious predecessors like Subandhu, Bāna, Somadevasūri, Dhanapala, and Trivikramabhatta. But, as a class, the MRA follows in the footsteps of the NC of the last one. Over and above being a Jain romance in prose and verse, it combines in itself the characteristics of a learned compendium of Jaina philosophical and religious doctrines pertaining to the life of abstinence and supreme importance of the Five-fold Formula of Salutation (panca-namaskāra), a modest repository of moralistic Subhasitas at once enlivened by occasional flashes of literary genius and poetic craftsman. ship.
Usually a Sanskrit prose-romance abounds in long-winding descriptions woven by the fabrics of complicated conglomerations of intricate and often loosely constructed lengthy compounds often to the detriment of the
14. Op. cit, p. 66, vs. 142. 15. YIC, p. 53. 16. Dhvanya.. p. 362, vs. 16 :
यदपि तदपि रम्यं यत्र लोकस्य किञ्चित स्फुरितमिदमितीयं बुद्धिरभ्युज्जिहीते।। भनुगतमपि पूर्वच्छायया वस्तु तादृक् सुकविरुपनिबध्नन् निन्द्यतां नोपयाति ॥
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