Narrative Tale in Jain Literature

Author(s): Satyaranjan Banerjee
Publisher: Asiatic Society

Page 97

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NARRATIVE TALE IN JAIN LITERATURE
by three lucky dreams. The first is named Padma, 4 and the second Lakṣmaṇa : his sons Bharata and Satrughna are born to him by Kaikeyi (XXV, 1-13).
Whereas the heroes of the Rāmāyana move in an entirely Brahmanical atmosphere, in the Paüma-Cariya the religion of the Jina is everywhere very much to the fore. The kings are generally pious laymen, who retire from the world in their old age, and become Jaina monks. As in all narrative poems of the Jainas, the preliminary stories, ie., the stories of the previous existences of the heroes, are told with a great wealth of detail. Dasaratha takes up the reins of government, because his elder brother Anantaratha has become a monk (XXII, 100-105). A festival in the Jaina temple is described (XXIX, 1-18) at which King Dasaratha with his sons performs the ablution of the Jina images, and after an eight days' fast worships the Jinas. After the ablution he sends the water to his wives, and the young women, the daughters-in-law, pour it over the heads of their mothers-in-law. Now the principal wife did not receive the water which was intended for her, and feels herself slighted, so that she wishes to hang herself. The king, however, surprises her. While she is explaining things to him, the chamberlain comes with the water, and pours it over her head, whereupon she calms down. But the king reproaches the chamberlain with his thoughtlessness, whereupon the latter excuses himself on the ground of old age :
"The body goes slowly like an old cart, The eyes are short-sighted like bad friends. The ears are deaf like bad sons, The teeth have fallen out like spokes out of the wheel, The hands find it difficult to grasp, like elephants taking a bite, The legs are unreliable like bad women; Only the crutch is like the beloved of the heart." These words are a warning for the king, intimating that he, too, is ripe to say farewell to worldly things.
4. It is noteworthy that it is only Rāma who has received another
name, whilst the other namos remain unchanged.