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NARRATIVE TALE IN JAIN LITERATURE
in the household; he entrusts the third one with the guarding of the entire property; but he gives the entire management of the large household into the hands of the fourth daughter-in-law.-These four women represent the monks some of whom do not keep the five great vows at all, others neglect them, the better ones observe them conscientiously, but the best of whom are not content with observing them, but propagate them also.6
VII
THE STORY OF MALLI The story of Mallī, the only female Tirthankara,
is told in the JñātȚdharma kathā :
Mallī, the daughter of the king of Mithilā, is of wondrous; incomparable beauty. Six princes learn of her beauty, each in a different way, and woo her. One of them, the king of the Kuru land, gets to know of Malli through a portrait which an artist has painted of her, after he had seen only the princess' great toe.? Mallī's father refuses all the six princes. They are infuriated, and combine to wage war against the king. Mithilā is besieged, and the king is helpless. Then Malli advises the king to invite each one of the princes into the city. promising each one her hand. Owing to her power of clairvoyance, she had already foreseen everything long before, and had a "puzzling house"8 constructed; then she made a figure which bore
6. E. Leumann (WZKM 3, 1880, 331 f.; GGA 1899, 588) has
compared the parable of the talents in St. Matth. 25 and St. Luke 19, 12 ff. It is, however, scarcely feasible to assume any historical connection between the Jinistic and the Christian parable. Thus also Garbe, Indien und das Christentum, p. 43 f. Note; and now also Leumann, Buddha
und Mahavira, ZB 1921, p. 55 ff. 7. This episode reminds us of the Buddhist stories of famous
artists, above, p. 136 f., and the entire narrative betrays a highly cultivated art. Mohanaghara, "a house intended for confusion," namely a house in which a second house, and in the latter a third
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