________________
१०
vatsa-Sävalimga' (A. Nahta, M. Majmudar), Käṣṭhaśreşthin" (H. Bhayani) etc. These studies have different orientations, some concentrating on the literary-historical aspect and others on the folk-tale aspect. Of the stories mentioned above those of Müladeva, Kälaka and Aramaśobhä have been so far fortunate in receiving scholarly attention. Bloomfield's pioneering effort to study the Muladeva cycle now requires to be supplemented by a comparative-historical treatment of all the available materials. Brown's study of the Kalaka legend stands in need of some revision in the light of additional materials" made available by A. Shah. It should be noted in passing that among the thirtysix different texts collected by Shah there also figures the Kalala story from Devacandra's Mulasüddhi commentary. Of course Shah edited it" independently of the present endeavour. As to the story of Arämaśobhã, now that we know it from the MC., H. Jain's view13 on the influence of the Sugandhadasami story on it is to be revised. The MC. version of the Ārāmasobha is prior to the earliest known version of the Sugandhadasami. One further consequence of this is that the question of the immediate Indian original of the Cinderella too shall have to be reconsidered.
Anothe aspect of the importance of the MC. is brought out by the fact that several Jain authors have drawn upon or borrowed liberally from its stories. We shall casually mention here only two such instances. In his commentary on Haribhadra's Samyaktvasaptati" Samghatilaka Sūri has reproduced almost verbatim the Kalaka story from the MC. The slight changes he has made here and there mostly consist of substituting synonyms and changing constructions. Similarly on the strength of significant verbal resemblance it seems probable that the Müladeval story in MC. served as a source for the version found in the Kumarapalapratibodha.
In this connection, we should also mention a few stories of this collection that clearly preserve the stamp of a folk-tale. The side story about the origin of Gajägrapada, the name of a mountain, occurring in the Arya-Mahägiri story belongs to the cycle of the stories of cuckoldry such as we find in popular collections like the Sukasaptati. The story of Bhima and Mahābhima presents a version of a widely current tale illustrating the principle "You reap what you sow."
7. A. Nahta, "Sadayavatsa Såvalimga Ki prem-kathā, Rajasthan-Bhārati, Vol. 3, 1, pp. 49 f; M. Majmudar, Sadayavatsa Vira Prabandha, 1961.
8. H. C. Bhayani, The Magic Bird-Heart', Bharatiya Vidya, 23. 1-4. 1963, 99-114; Sodh ane Svadhyay, 1965, p. 43. 74; Kästha-seth-ni Damtakatha Lokagurjari, 5, 1968, 1-2.
9. The Character and Adventures of Müladeva. Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society, 52, 616-650. See also Bloomfield's Foreword to Tawney-Penzer. The Ocean of Story, Vol, 7. p. XII; A. N. Upadhye, "The Dhürtäkhyäna a Critical Study' in Haribhadra's Dhürtäkhyāna, ed. by Jinavijaya Muni, 1944, p. 23.
10. N. Brown, The Story of Kalala, 1933.
11. A. P. Shah, Sri-Kalakācārya-Katha - Samgrah, 1949.
12. See pp. 6-22 of the work.
13. H. Jain, Sugandhadasami Kathā, 1966, Introduction, pp. 16-18.
14. Samyaktvasaptati, with Samghatilaka's Commentary, ed. by Lalitvijay Muni, 1916.
