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116: Sramaņa, Vol 62, No. 1 January-March 2011
4. Prolegomenon on the Emergence of Personal Biography in Jaina Literature The. above survey of personal biography in Jaina literature illustrates that biographies of historical individuals of a recent (ʻlocalized') past began to appear in the second half of the 11th century. There may, to be sure, have been several reasons and influences leading to this turn in Jaina writing, and I shall here but attempt some cursory and quite preliminary remarks for explaining this development.
The first circumstance to consider is the nature of the earliest text containing personal biographies that I have hitherto been able to identify, namely the first work listed in the above survey: Prabhācandra's Kathākośa, “The Treasury of Stories.” This text was composed in the late 11th century (UPADHYE, 1943:62), possibly in the year 1077 CE (date according to GRANOFF, 1989a:110). The text begins with a verse of homage, wherein the author characterizes his text as a "collection (prabandha) of genuinely good stories (sat-su-kathā) on the Arādhana" (Āradhanāśatsukathāprabandha).44 This statement is, in fact, parallel to the title by which the author himself later refers to his text, namely, Arādhanā-kathā-prabandha (UPADHYE, 1943:60), meaning "A Collection of Stories on the Arādhanā.” The word Ārādhanā refers to a text entitled Bhagavati Ārādhanā, and it is thus clear that the Kathākośa is intimately linked with this work.
The Bhagavati Arādhanā is an important Digambara work composed by Sivārya (date unknown), possibly written in the early centuries CE. It deals with a long series of ascetic practices culminating with death through fasting. It is, in fact, just one of several Aradhanā texts dealing with this topic. 4S In the words of UPADHYE (1943:47), “Aradhanā consists in firm and successful accomplishment of ascetic ideals, namely, Faith, Knowledge, Conduct and Penance, that are laid down in Jainism; in maintaining a high standard of detachment, forbearance, self-restraint and mental equipoise at the critical hour of death; and in attaining
