Narrative Tale in Jain Literature

Author(s): Satyaranjan Banerjee
Publisher: Asiatic Society

Page 95

80
NARRATIVE TALE IN JAIN LITERATURE
belief. Goyama declares his willingness to impart to the king that which Mahāvīra himself proclaimed, for "that which bad poets relate about Rāvaṇa, is indeed lies, I shall instruct you first as to place and time, and then as to the lives of the great men" (III, 14-17).
2
The narrative begins (III, 18) as in a Purāṇa,2 with a description of the universe and the history of Rṣabha, the first Jina, who lived in the Kṛta age, when there were only three castes, Kṣatriyas, Vaisyas and Śūdras. The origin of the Vidyadharas, "holders of spells," a kind of demigods, is related (III, 144 ff.; cf V, 13 ff.), also the origin of the Brahmins (IV, 64 ff.), of the Ikṣvāku dynasty and the dynasty of the moon (V. 1 ff.). Then comes the history of the second Jina with all manner of preliminary stories (V, 48 ff.).
The story of the "race of monkeys" is told in Canto VI. On the monkey island there is the city of Kiṣkindhāpura. The "monkeys" are in reality a race of Vidyadharas, which is so-called, because it has monkeys by way of a badge on the arches of gates, banners, and the like. Canto VII treats of Indra, of the guardians of the universe Soma, Varuņa, Kubera and Yama, the Asuras, Yakṣas etc.. Vaiśramaņa (who is distinct from Kubera) and the birth of Rāvaṇa, his sister Candramukhā and his brothers Bhānukarṇa and Vibhiṣaṇa. Rāvana and his brothers acquire enormous magic powers by virtue of asceticism. The Rākṣasas, whose prince Rāvana is, are not man-eating demons, however, but adherents of the race of the Vidyadharas. Rāvana's mother hangs around his neck a wondrous string of pearls, in which his face is reflected nine times, hence his epithet of Dasamukha, "the man with ten faces" (VII, 95 f.). The
2. The work calls itself a "Purāņa" in the Introduction (I, 32) and at the end (CXVIII, 111).
3. This is obviously a realistic explanation of the epithet of Rāvaṇa, who in Rāmāyaṇa, III, 9 f., is a ten-headed monster, and is therefore called Daśagrīva. See Chintaharan Chakravarti in Ind. Hist. Qu. 1, 1925, 779 ff. G. Ramadas (Ind. Hist. Qu. 5, 1929, 281 ff.) has shown that in many passages in the Rāmāyaṇa Rāvaṇa has only one head and one face. The interpretation of the "monkeys" as Vidyadharas with monkeys on their banner, is also realistic.