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MEDIEVAL JAINISM: CULTUREAND ENVIRONMENT
sprinkling water or touch of hand or uttering incantations, and so on, which the narrator repeats, exaggerates and dramatises in order to fascinate his audience. The collection of such tales belong to various strata. Some are pre-historic, corresponding to the present day savage, embodying those irrational ideas and forgotten customs; others result from barbaric civilization containing exaggerated conceptions of it such as desire-yielding trees, flying horses, and so on. The incidents of these tales reflecting every day beliefs and customs may appear irrational to us but they are credible to them. They very ideas and beliefs gave rise to short narratives or what may be called story germs.
These tales helped primitive men to escape from frustration, hardships of life, inequalities, and injustices. It has been remarked about sexual symbolism which plays an astonishing part in the customs and beliefs in folklore : "The underlying idea here appears to be that if only the person could dare to prove himself that he could commit incest, symbolically of course, without the dreaded punishment ensuing, that the very impunity would be the best réassurance imaginable against his fears ... These findings are dedicated by the desire to free the personality from guilt, from punishment and from misfortune, and thus to restore the innate faculty of potency and fertility, in short, to ensure happiness.”
As these tales deal with simple wishes and fears of the people, they have very little to do with spiritual or moral speculations. It is a world which goes back to early religious setting where people live in harmony with fabulous beings and think that the real world is insecure and unstable. Here they are concerned more with their personal welfare, acquirement of fertility, preservation of health and leading a life free from disease, danger, and death. As such these tales were free from regional
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