Shravakachar of Vasunandini

Author(s): Signe Kirde
Publisher: Signe Kirde

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5.2 Catalogue of Vices
5 TRANSLATION: ŚR (57-205)
Prati-Vasudeva209, a demon endowed with supernatural faculties.210
⚫ Carudatta Carudatta is a merchant's son who loves a beautiful cour211 tesan. His adventures make up a favourite plot in Indian literature. 21 Brahmadatta is the name of a legendary ruler of Pañcala and a notorious character in the stories of the Jains. He is assigned to be the twelfth legendary ruler. Because of his cruelties he is destined to attain rebirth in the seventh hell.212 Śri-bhūti is the sixth future Cakravartin in Jain mythology.213 Embezzlement is regarded as a fruit of negligence and harmful meditation. Its results are misery and pain. For Rudradatta see AP LXX.152ff. In this version he is a brahmin addicted to women and gambling.
134) In a few brief words I will explain the various kinds of sufferings which the sentient being attains as result of the seven vices in the ocean of mundane existence.
209 See Mehta 1972, Vol. II, p. 631; Jaini 1993:210. As king of goblins Rāvana is also mentioned in the episode of "Pala and Gopala" of Jinakirti (Hertel 1917:23; 47). In the poem Pauma-cariyu by Vimalasuri, the oldest Jain version which narrates the adventures of Rama, Rāvana is beheaded by Vasudeva with his own disk.
210 For the fourteen attributes of a legendary ruler see Norman 1983-1985:183ff. and Varni 2003-2004, Vol. IV, p. 13. Leumann 1883a [1998]:541 (if I understood him correctly) assumes that Jain medieval authors borrowed characters and plots from several oral and written traditions and incorporated them into their epics. But see also my notes in the Analysis on the "substrat theory", especially in the revised version of Seyfort Ruegg 2008, and Bollée 2009:135, note 1.
211 One version which is set in Campa in the reign of Surasena is summarised in the commentary of Śr (M), pp. 119-124; see also Mehta 1972, Vol. I, p. 258; Mayrhofer 1983:163-173.
212 See for instance the Brahmadatta episode in Mehta 1972, Vol. II, p. 493. Another version occurs in the Uttarajjhaya, chapter XIII; cf. also AP LXXII.287; Meyer 1909:3-62; Jaini 1993:207-249. For another character of the same name see Bollée 2002:357ff.
213 In a story summarised in AP LIX.147-152 the thief is the brahmin Satyaghosa, the minister of the king Simhasena. Cf. the story in the commentary of Prabhacandra on Rk. III.12 (Bollée 2010a:68ff.). When a merchant came to the minister, he bestowed him with his jewels. After many years the merchant's son wanted them back, but the minister could not produce these gems. See also the examples in the Kuvalaya-mālā, Vol. II, p. 315, note 1020, and verse 100.15ff.
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