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ON BHADRESVARA'S KAHAVALI
Moreover, one of the four types of the interpretation of the Canonical texts is kathānuyoga. It is thus but natural that a vast narrative literature was produced by the Jaina authors.
As far as the K is concerned, it is an important narrative work, for it is the very first book which gives the lives of all the 24 Tirthankaras of the present avasarpiņi, those of the future Tirthankaras, of the Cakravartins, the Baladevas, the Vasudevas, some of the Naradas and also of the great Jaina preceptors up to Haribhadra. Bhadreśvara's plan was to narrate the biographies of great men up to his own time, but unfortunately he could not finish it. It can be said that his work became the model for the later prabandha literature which began in the later part of the twelfth century.
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Bhadresvara is not an original writer. He compiles his K from various sources. This can be established by the fact that the life of Rsabha has its source. in the Vasudevahindi and the Avaśyaka-cûrni. The life of Mahāvīra is also from the same, as well as from most of the stories found in the canonical literature, which Bhadresvara is the first author to use. Curni and Titthogalia are the sources for the stories about the reduction of the canonical literature. Mahānisîha is the source for stories regarding worship of the Jinas and such other ceremonials.
K is indeed a type of << Universal History >>, but it has its own style of narration. Bhadresvara is certainly interested in narrating the << Universal History >>, but to add to its lustre he has included many attractive imaginative stories as examples or illustrations, just as the Tarangavaï story and such others. Their main source may be Gunädhya's Bṛhatkatha and other works dependant on it. For his narration of Ramayana and Harivamsa (Mahābhārata), the sources are Vasudevahindi and Paumacaria, and such other Jain Purānas. I could not compare Jinasena's Mahāpurāṇa and other such works with K, but the common sources for such a text must be Tiloyapannatti, Avasyakaniryukti and Titthogalia, etc.
It seems that Bhadresvara had previously written the << Rāmāyaṇa >>, << Tarangavai >>, << Bandhudattacaria >> and << Harivamsa >> which he later included in K at the end of these stories in K, he concludes:
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