________________
Story of Rāma in Jain Literature
3. EXTENT, FORM, ETC., OF THE TWO EPICS
This comparison of the titles of the cantos of the two poems indisputably establishes that Ravişena has placed before him Vimala's Paüma-Cariya as his model, and has adopted almost the same plan of division of the poem into suitable Cantos. We say 'almost' because Ravişena has made a sew alterations and additions in the naming and numbering of Cantos. While Paüma-Cariya has 118 Cantos, the Padma-Purana has 123 Captos. The titles of the corresponding 118 Cantos in the two poems are in agreement with each other notwithstanding slight verbal differences. The additional five Cantos in the Padma-Purāņa are obtained by splitting the Cantos of Paüma-Cariya as shown above. Vimala's work is in Prakrit while Ravişena's is in Sanskrit. The Paima-Cariya is in the Arya metre, while the Padma-Purāņa is in Anuştup metre.? The Padma-Puräna is easily double in extent as compared with the Pauma-Cariya: The longest canto of the Padma-Puräna is the 6th with 573 stanzas and the shortest is the 87th with 18 stanzas, while in the case of Paüma-Cariya, the longest canto is the 8th with 286 stanzas and the shortest is the 60th with only 9 stanzas. The Padma--Purana throughout calls the divisions of the poem as Parvan while the Paüma-Cariya calls the first 35 as Uddesas and the rest Parvans.
4. CANTOWISE SUMMARY OF PADMAPURANA DISPENSED WITH
The story of Rama in Padma-Purāņa is identical with that of Paümacariya. In order to avoid repetition we dispense with the cantowise summary of Padmapurāņa, and rest content by drawing attention to statements of Ravişena which set forth the Digambara tradition regarding the origin of the Rāma story and a few others which deviate from those of Vimalasūri.
(i) In the opening and the closingło cantos Ravişena records the Digambara tradition of the handing down of the story of Rāma from Mahāvīra to Indrabhūti
7 fagot. Tietoa | Pc canto 118 v. 102
And, IEAITE97ag fágfaasa | Pp. canto 123-186 8 The Pc contains about 9000 gāthās while the Pp. has a total of 18023 anustup-ślokas, Pp.
in its concluding stanza gives the total number of its verses as 18023. 9 वर्धमानजिनेन्द्रोक्तः सोऽयमों गणेश्वरम् ।
इन्द्रभूति परिप्राप्तः सुधर्म धारिणीभवम् ॥ प्रभवं क्रमतः कीर्ति ततोऽनुत्तरवाग्मिनम् ।
falad det ågra caucasayga: 11–1.vv 41-42 10 निर्दिष्टं सकलैनतेन भुवनैः श्रीवर्धमानेन यत्
तत्वं वासवभूतिना निगदित जम्बोः प्रशिष्यस्य च ।
