Some Jain Versions of Act of Truth Theme

Author(s): Paul Dundas
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Paul Dundas
Jambu-jyoti
the nature of truth are described by Sāgarmal Jain, Jain Bhāṣā-Darsan, Dilli/ Pāšan: Bhogilal Lehercand Bharatiya Saṁskṛti Samsthān 1966, pp. 87-100. Peter Flügel, “Power and Insight in Jain Discourse" (forthcoming), discusses Jain attitudes to language and truth from a sociological perspective.
Although this is not the context in which to discuss cross-cultural notions of truth, it might be worth drawing attention, in passing, to the remarkable account of the nature and function of truth as employed by the Charans (Caranas) or bards in traditional Rajasthan given by Denis Vidal, Violence and Truth: A Rajasthani Kingdom Confronts Colonial Authority, Delhi : Oxford University Press 1997, pp. 100-04. According to Vidal (p. 103), “....the truth-function of the bards cannot be directly defined in terms of values which simply contrast truth with fiction and celebrate the power of the true over the false. The full value of a bard's words was acknowledged, not so much because it enabled truth to overcome falsehood, as because it embodied the much more awe-inspiring capacity to make either "truth"
or "falsehood” prevail, by lending them the power of ritual inspiration". 7. Colette Caillar, "The Beating of the Brahmins (Uttaradhyayana 12)", in Nalini
Balbir and Joachim K. Bautze (ed.), Festschrift Klaus Bruhn, Reinbek : Studien zur
Indologie und Iranistik 1994, pp. 255-66. 8. John E. Cort, Liberation and Wellbeing : A Study of the Svetambar Murtipujak
Jains of North Gujarat, Harvard University Ph. D. dissertation 1989, pp. 419-20. The specific example referred to is of deities burning down a house after an act of truth asserting the genuineness of Mahāvīra's asceticism by Makkhali Gosāla who has been angered by being given stale alms food. According to Cort, there are several acts of truth in this portion of the Trişastisalākāpurusacarita. I refrain from
referring further to this text as I do not have access to the original Sanskrit. 9. Harisena, Bșhatkathākośa, Ed. A. N. Upadhye, Simghi Jain Series, Vol. 17,
Bombay : Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan 1943. (The text is precisely dated to ś.s. A.D.
93,- Editers. 10. It might be noted that P. S. Jaini, The Jaina Path of Purification, Delhi/Varanasi/
Patna : Motilal Banarasidass 1979, p. 300 note 43, cites this story in passing,
albeit without reference to it containing an act of truth. 11. Vv. 50-2 : bho bho śrnuta me vākyam lokapálā manoharam
lokapalanakodyukto Rudradatto jagau tada || yadi mäheśvaro dharmo devo paramah Sivahtasyecchayā pravarteta jagat sarvam hrdi sthitam || yadi