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some personal stories, one of which concerns the lovers-tiff, which he is instructed to tell Rāma at his return to the mainland. In Puşpadanta's account on Hanumats arrival, Sītā doubts whether he is a genuine envoy of Rāma. In order to convince her, Hanumat tells her the story of the lovers-tiff. In Svayambhūdeva's account there is no reference to this anecdote. He does however describe how Sītā doubts whether Hanumat is genuinely sent by Rāma,78 a reference absent from Vimalasūri's and Ravişena's accounts. Hanumat tells her some stories about Rāma's life in exile in order to convince her. The reference to the lovers-tiff itself is probably borrowed either from Vimalasûri or Ravişeņa, while the reference to Sītā's doubt in the Mahāpurāna is borrowed from the Paūmacariu. Vimalasūri,79 Ravişeņa, 80 Svayambhūdeva81 and Puspadanta all share an episode in which Vibhișana attempts to kill himself with a dagger. According to Vimalasűri and Ravişeņa, he is saved by Rāma's intervention. In Svayambhūdeva's account of this episode. Vibhīşena's suicide-attempt fails because he faints at the point were he tries to stab himself. According to Puşpadanta he is saved by his ministers. Together with all of the poets in the school of Vimalsūri, Puspadanta refutes the traditional Hindu Rāma-stories in his introductory verses. None of the poets, except for Puspadanta, explicitly mention Vālmīki and Vyāsa as the poets who wrote these "false" Rāma-stories. They all state why these Hindu versions should be refuted. These statements are quite similar in all the works. It is therefore uncertain which of the three authors was Puşpadanta's source for this reference in the Mahāpurāņa. In the Mahāpurāņa, the poet refers to the story of Rāma as Padmacaritra. 82 Since references to Rāma as "Padma" are already quite few in Puşpadanta's Rāma-story, the mentioning of the Rāma-story as Padmacaritra can be considered as a very clear reference to the Rāma-stories of Vimalasūri's school.
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