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Klaus Bruhn
The Universal History is not isolated in the ancient Indian milieu. There are structural parallels and parallels of content in Buddhist mythology (8 1), and there are many parallel motifs in Brahmanical literature (even if we ignore all those Jaina narrations which did not belong to the nucleus of the UH but were included later). Some points of contact are less known than others, and publications of a more general character treat the three traditions separately. The UH has been studied by several scholars 27
It is difficult to say how the UH (Svetāmbara version) developed. We have earlier (canonical, post-canonical) and later sources, and taken in its entirety the material is of considerable extent. What strikes us is that on the one hand data in the canon is limited and somewhat scattered, while on the other hand fairly early canonical works (« middlecanonical ») already depict facets of the UH which presuppose a fairly advanced stage of its development. Thus we have no « proto-history ». On the whole we can divide the Svetāmbara literature on the UH into three sections: Hemacandra's encyclopaedic version (12th century), earlier versions (differing in date, size, character, and all incomplete), and later versions (incomplete, unoriginal).
The basic impression for the student of the UH is clarity. If there is anything « easy » in the vast domain of Jaina thought, it certainly is - or seems to be — the UH: a clear chronological background (« our » avasarpini with its six subdivisions). a limited number of well-defined series (24 Jinas, 12 Cakravartins, 9 Triads 28), and systematic repetition as the overriding principle: members of the same series have similar biographies. All this is summed up by H. von Glasenapp on p. 261 of his book on Jainism 29. There are, nevertheless complications and irregularities. We will try to enumerate such cases in a list 30. For simplicity's sake we shall introduce for our discussions on the UH the neologism << sarpini >> as a general term for both « avasarpini >> and << utsarpini».
(1) The system (63 great men) according to the table on p. 261 of von Glasenapp's Jainismus belongs ti our sarpiņi and to our continent (Bharataksetra, the southernmost continent of Jambūdvipa). But there are other systems (following the same pattern) in other sarpinis and/or
27. In the present context we mention the following: VON GLASENAPP, Jainismus, pp. 244-310. SCHUBRING, Lehre, $$ 12-15. J. DELEU, Die Mythologie des Jinismus (Wörterbuch der Mythologie, cf. fn. 2 supra). For details of the Digambara tradition refer to T. N. RAMACHANDRAN, Tiruparuttikunram and Its Temples (Madras, 1934), pp. 165-235, pp. iii-iv. For « Manus and their periods », « dynastic lists », etc. refer to S. JHA, Aspects of Brahmanical Influence on the Jaina Mythology, Delhi, 1978.
28. Baladevas, Vāsudevas and Prativāsudevas. The collective term for the first two categories is daśārha. The members of the last category may or may not be counted as mahāpuruşas so that the total is either 63 or 54.
29. See $ 27.
30. Some items of our list are also included in VON GLASENAPP's, Jainismus, although they could not be considered in the table of p. 261.
