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Repetition in Jaina narrative literature
(inter alia 41 names of Kulakaras and 174 names of mahāpuruṣas) 38. The slot-filler technique is most developed in the series of box 4. Roughly speaking we can distinguish between three cases: (A) 1 slot = 24 fillers, (B) 1 slot = several fillers, (C) 1 slot 1 filler. Case (A) is inevitable as far as names of persons are concerned. An instance of (B) is the << height of the caitya-tree » in box 4. Here we have three different fillers (one measurement for Jina no. 1, one for no. 24, one for nos. 2-23). Case (C) is the translation of a standard episode (or any standard feature) into tabular form. Thus we are told in the context of the tabular account that all Jinas (savve vi) wore one piece of garment when they renounced the world.
§ 12. The Universal History in the Kalpasatra
The Kalpasūtra (« Bhadrabahu's KS ») contains a block of UH material which can be summarized as follows:
(1) Mahāvīracarita (cf. Acaränga II, 15)
(2) Pārśvacarita
(3) Nemicarita
(4) Jinântarāni (Jinas nos. 21 to 2) (5) Rṣabhacarita
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47 >>
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The Kalpasūtra is not the dawning of literary activities centred around the UH. Its Mahāvīracarita consists of original (non-repetitive) matter, fillers (i.e. fillers in text form accompanied by stylistic elaborations), and standard episodes. The biographies of Pärśva, Nemi, and Rṣabha obviously contain no original matter. They have merely fillers and standard episodes. However, the latter are not given in condensed form but in the more archaic form of varṇaka-repetition 40. The section on the jinântaras is only concerned with two slots: the names of the Jinas and the duration of the periods between the Jinas.
We have included (fig. 4 41) a table mentioning the antaras for the 24 Jinas of our system. Each box contains the name of a Jina along with the time-interval between his nirvāņa and the nirvāņa of the following
38. The Jaina authors fabricated names in great numbers whenever this seemed to be necessary for one reason or the other. E.g. compare L. ALSDORF, Harivamsapurāna, Hamburg, 1936, p. 44 (fn. 1) and p. 80 with fn. 2.
39. Lines of the Suttagame edition.
40. The later « remedies » for varnaka-repetition are (i) short description of a standard episode, (ii) mere mentioning of a standard episode as a fact. See §§ 10 and 14.
41. Taken from AvCu, ed. Anandasāgarasūri, RKSS, Ratlam, 1928-29, part I, p. 218. We have removed some redundant figures.
