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Tessitori's Pioneering Work on the Uvaeśamālā .... :91
persons, real or imaginary, who embodied them. Thus for instance:
“Monks who are aware of their previous births tolerate insults, threats, beating, contempt and abuse, like Dadhappahāri” (136) “Certain good pupils, who have a good behaviour, who observe the religious precepts, and who have a good nature, increase the faith even in the minds of their preceptors, like the pupil of Candarudda"
(167)
In the Uvaesamālā, there are about 80 such cases. The two examples must have made clear that the verses alone are not sufficient to really understand what was the behaviour of the person mentioned, and what was the context of his reactions. The verses say either too much or too little and, at first sight, appear as halfriddles. They have to be supplemented by something else, namely a commentary of some sort. Sometimes, it happens that the author of the verses also writes a commentary. This is not the case with the Uvaesamālā. Dharmadāsagani is ascribed only with the redaction of the verses. If we are to think that his work once could exist alone, we have at least to suppose that the elaboration of the examples was done orally by the monks who were aware of the contents through a tradition handed down from teacher to pupil. As a matter of fact, the great majority of examples's adduced in the Uvaesamālā cannot be considered as the result of the author's imagination. They come from a tradition prior to him and draw their value precisely from the fact that they are traditional: the heroes mentioned are either saints and martyrs of the first epoch of the Jaina community (various contemporaries of the Jinas, for instance), already known from the Jaina Canon itself: or more often, they date back to the first layer of Jaina exegetical texts which are replete with such references and stories. Thus, for those who are familiar with the Jaina cultural environment they are daily companions. Their lives and adventures have continued to be known from century to century, because they have been constantly revived through the commentaries written in the various languages
