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94: Śramana, Vol 61, No. 3 July-September 10
to show that the Uvaesamālā is one of the books which is most willingly quoted in Jaina works of all tendencies. With the material he could get hold of, Tessitori had already given instances of this process. Further investigations completed since then have corroborated the correctness of this observation and thrown some light on the relationship between the Uvaesamālā and the Mahānisīhasūtta, a curious work which, like the Uvaesamālā, poses to be very early, although it is probably not so: both works have in common a total of 31 stanzas21.
The abundance of the literary tradition connected with the Uvaesamālā in one way or the other is not the only sign of the fame enjoyed by this book in Jaina Śvetambara circles of Western India. The fact that it also aroused the interest of Jaina painters is another sign. The existence of at least four illustrated manuscripts of the Uvaesamālā has been reported in recent Indian publications (and there may be many more still preserved in the secret of the libraries of the Jaina temples). Two of them are palm-leaf manuscripts of the 13th century, which contain a small number of paintings, among which one of Lakṣmi and one of Ṛṣabha, respectively22. Two other paper- manuscripts are later, dating back respectively to the 17th and the 38th century. They are profusely decorated with paintings having bright colours23. The latest has a total of 70 illustrations24. Sixty-nine out of this total are narrative in character: each painting corresponds to a story alluded to in the Uvaesamālā and told in the relevant portion of the commentaries. [- I shall pass on the book published by Moti Chandra and U.P. Shah, where you can admire a few color reproductions of lively scenes depicting the adventures of several Jaina heroes. Thus one thing becomes even more obvious than it was until now: the storyelement, which is the only one to appeal to the imagination of the painters, is largely responsible for the popularity of the Uvaesamālā in all its manifestations, whether literary or pictorial.
To conclude:
Even if it is of course unavoidable that, in the lapse of 82
