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Padma-Purāna of Ācārya Ravişena
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5. GENERAL REMARKS
(i) The tradition stated : Ravişena records the tradition of the origin of the story of Rāma thus : Lord Mahāvira first delivered the contents of the Padma-Purana to Indra-bhūti Gautama who handed them down to Sudharman who in his turn delivered them to Jambūsvāmin and Jambūsvāmin to Prabhava and thus through a series of disciples it was handed down to Kirti and through him to Anuttaravāgmin. 28 And on the basis of the last named one Ravişena based his Padma-Purāņa.
(ii) Scrutiny of the tradition : Like his predecessor Vimala Sūri, Ravişeņa too traces the origin of the Rāma story to Mahāvīra. It is really very strange that in the tradition recorded he does not speak of the Paüma-Cariya of Vimala Sūri upon which his Padma-Purāņa is based - not only that his Padma-Purāņa very closely follows the narrative in the Paüma-Cariya, canto by canto of course with negligible variations. We have already shown how the Padma-Purāna is an enlarged edition of Vimala Sūri's Prakrit epic in Sanskrit. How is it then that Ravişena omits any reference to the Paüma-Cariya ? There is a logical possibility that the two poems are derived independently from a lost common source. But then logical possibilities, unfortunately, do not carry us very far in historical investigations. We hold firmly to the opinion formed after a close comparative study of the two poems separated from each other by about a few centuries that the Padma-Purāņa is derived from the Paüma-Cariya of Vimala Sūri and very probably sectarian prejudice prevented Ravişeņa a Digambara author from acknowledging his indebtedness to a Svetāmbara work. As we have already pointed out, Ravişeņa has reproduced the narrative of the Paüma-Cariya with some alterations to suit the Digambara tradition. He has studiously avoided the use of the word Svetāmbara from the narrative of Vimala by substituting Digambara or Anambara in its place. The tradition that he has recorded does not give the true souree of this epic. Of course, it may readily be admitted that Ravişeņa might have done this in good faith - or possibly Anuttaravāgmin, the last named one in the tradition upon whose work Ravişeņa has drawn, might have been responsible for not acknowledging his indebtedness to Vimala Sūri's epic.
In this connection it is no longer necessary to discuss the theory that the Paüma-Cariya is an abridged edition in Prakrit of Ravişena's Padma-Purana. It has been thoroughly answered by Pt. Premi (Jain Sahitya aura Itihāsa, pp. 274–276). It is no more even a mere literary curiosity.
18
Anuttaravägmin' is rather a very unusual name. It is, however, possible to take ihe expression 'anuttaravāgminam in the present context as an adjective of Kirti (Kirtidhara). A. N. Upadhye in fact, has construed this way. He has cited Svayambu's line from Paümacariya 'Kittihareņa anuttaravāe' to show that Svayambhū too has taken the expreèssion as an adjective of Kirtidhara (vide Bharatiya Jnapitha edn, Vol. I, Introduction p.22 f.n.1).
