Studies in Jain Literature

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

Page 61

ORIGIN OF HE STORY OF RAMA IN JAIN LITERATURE
moreover it gives an elaborate description of the dynasties of Raksasas and Vanaras and many stories and legends about them.
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The Uttarakanda, although a later addition, was known to the author of Paümacariya, as we have already shown in the preceding section. The Uttarakanda is intended as a supplement and relates only events antecedent and subsequent to those described in the original poem. Thus the early history of Ravana with the Räkṣasa and Vänara families fills nearly forty cantos in the Uttarakanda and we have a full account of Ravana's wars with the gods and his conquest of Lanka, which all happened long before the action of the poem begins; and the latter Cantos continue the narrative of the hero Rama after his triumphant return to Ayodhya's kingdom and his coronation and the poem closes with his death and that of his brothers and the founding by their descendants of various kingdoms in different parts of India. Now what Vimalasuri does is that he opens his epic with the description of the universe etc., and the various dynasties of the Rākṣasas and the Vanaras, the world-conquest of Ravana, etc., with a view to furnishing the reader with the proper background and setting of the real story. This way of treatment will only facilitiate the understanding of the story by the reader. The narrative method of Vimalasūri follows the chronological method of representing the beginning first, then the middle and finally the end. In Uttarakanda we have events antecedent and subsequent to the main story. One might appreciate Vimala's way of unfolding the story but in itself it does not indicate that the Räkṣasas and Vänaras and their legends were widely known and that the Rama-story was added later on as a supplement only. We may also point out in this connection that the Rämopäkhyāna in the Mahabharata opens with an account of Ravana and his family, and the Vanaras. Vimala may have taken a hint from this opening in the Rāmopakhyāna.
(b) The elevated notion about the Vänaras and the Räkṣasas in the Jain Rāmāyaṇas: Vimalasūri represents the Räkṣas as and the Vanaras as a class of Vidyadharas and devout followers of Jainism; Rākṣasas are not man-eating demons and the Vänaras are not monkeys with tails, etc.
To this we answer as follows :
The descriptions of the Vänaras in the Välmiki Rāmāyaṇa are open to the charge of inconsistency. They are generally represented as semi-divine beings with preternatural powers living in houses and eating and drinking like men; sometimes as monkeys pure and simple, living in woods and eating fruits and roots. The highly exaggerated descriptions of ten-faced Rāvana, etc., are