Some Aspects of Indian Culture

Author(s): A S Gopani, Nagin J Shah, Dalsukh Malvania
Publisher: L D Indology Ahmedabad

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Some Aspects of Indian Culture
Generally speaking, the mass mind is more attracted by stories of love and romance full of erotic expressions than by those replete with moral tone and prosaic devotional exhortations. And the Nirgrantha writers were not slow to recognize this tendency of the mass mind. They, therefore, decided to write some Dharmakathas which were not without passages depicting love and romance, although formerly they were prohibited by their Dharmaśästras to write stories whose central theme would be a king, a country, a woman or a foodstuff. Thus on account of their literary gifts and power of imagination and expression they adorned their stories, “which like a new bride would delight the mind of sympathetic audience-they being well decorated, beautiful, graceful, tender, and full of sweet expressions."?
It will be seen that the chief aim of these new Jaina story writers remained the same as before, viz., the spiritual well being of the masses. In order to meet the need of the time they adopted new motifs and new expressions, but the end of the stories always pointed to the fruits of Dharma and Adharma.
III. Padalipta's Tarangavati-katha Among the new story literature Padaliptasuri's Terangavati occupies almost the first place. That monk was a reputed court poet of king Hala of the śātavāhana dynasty. Another great Guņādhya by name, autbor of that exquisite story-work Bịhat katha (in Paisaci language), was also a protégé of that king, who was himself a great poet and had written the famous Gahākośa or Gäthä-saptašati. This poem in Prakrit has made its author, the king Hāla, very famous and is a source of delight to the learned circles. Even at present the author of the Kuvala yamala has given us some description in his preface, about these three poets, as will be seen from the relevant passages to be quoted below in the course of this paper. The original Tarangavati of Padaliptasūri has not been as yet discovered. Only a condensed summary of the same by one Gaņi Veņicandra, pupil of Ācārya Virabhatta or Virabhadra, of unknown date, is available at present, through which we get a glimpse of the original.8 This condensed summary, which is according to its own author only an abbreviated summary, contains 1640 slokas; to gauge the size of the original story must therefore be left to the imagination. The reason of the abridgment of the story is given by the author in the introductory four verses : “ Tarangavati-katha by Padalipta is elaborate, extensive and of a strange character. It abounds in Desi expressions. There are many Kulakas, Gupitayugalakas, and Şațkas which are generally unintelligible to the average reader. Therefore nobody studies it, none listens to it and even inquires about it. Only a few learned persons use it. I am therefore preparing this summary leaving out Padalipta's own Desi expressions, for the benefit of the common masses. There is an additional purpose in this undertaking, viz., the prevention of Padalipta's work form falling into complete oblivion.''9 This description shows that Padalipta's Tarangayati was originally written in Jaina Mahärāștri and its author used a large