Studies in Jain Literature

Author(s): V M Kulkarni
Publisher: Shardaben Chimanbhai Educational Research Centre

Page 27

CHARACTER OF JAIN MYTHOLOGY
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eminent scholars of the Hindu Epic and Purānas do hold that Rāma, Kṛṣṇna etc., may have lived as actual human beings.
5. THE EXTENT OF JAIN MYTHOLOGY
The narrative literature of the Jains is very vast in extent and varied in scope. The Purāņas, the Mahā-Purāņas, and the 'Caritras' together form one of its main types'. They are written in Prakrit, Sanskrit and Apabhramśa. They treat of the biographies of the 63 Eminent Men (salākāpurusas) that is to say the 24 Tīrthakaras and their contemporaries, the 12 Cakravartins or rulers of the world and the 27 heroes-9 Baladevas, 9 Vasudevas and 9 Prativasudevas of antiquity. These works are usually called 'Puranas' by the Digambaras while 'Caritras' by the the Svetambaras. The Maha-Purana contains the lives of all the 63 prominent personalities, whereas a Purāna or Carita generally deals with the life of a single Jina or some other hero 10. The number of these works is very large and a few of them are very wide in their scope, while others confine themselves to narrow limits.
Winternitz, in his History of Indian Literature", briefly reviews the wellknown Digambara Purāņas (Padma-Harivamsa-, Trisastilakṣaṇa-, Maha- and Uttara-Purāṇa) and Svetambara Caritas like Hemacandra's Trisaṣṭi-Śalākāpurusa-Carita. The Jains adopted almost all the favourite popular themes from Brahmanical and general Indian Literature to offer their coreligionists all that they could find elsewhere too. They also created poems of their own, which were to serve the Jain Community as a substitute for the great epics Rāmāyaṇa and Mahabharata.
6. THE SUBJECT MATTER OF JAIN MYTHOLOGY.
Besides the lives of the sixty three great figures the Purāņas expound various topics such as the 'Anaditva' of the universe, the origin of different races, genealogies and accounts of kings, the duties of a Śrāvaka and of a Śramaṇa, philosophy, ethics, metaphysics, criticism of the cult of animal sacrifice and of the priestly religion. No single work treats of all these subjects but, taken collectively, they may justly be described as a popular encyclopaedia of Jainism representing all phases, religious, philosophical, historical, and cultural. The Purānas claim to expound also the four subjects which comprise all human endeavour-Dharma (righteousness), Artha (wealth), Kāma (love) and Mokṣa (liberation) 12. Certain Purāṇas claim to give a 'history of the world' and present at the same time an encyclopaedia of all that is edifying to the pious Jain and that is worthy of his study. Thus, for example, the Adi-Purāṇa describes the Samskaras 13, which accompany the life of an individual from conception to
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