Studies in Jain Literature

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

Page 79

DEVELOPMENT OF THE STORY OF RĀMA IN JAIN LITERATURE
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Satruñjaya mountain. Kaikeyi asks for the banishment of Rāma (and Laksmana too) in addition to her demand of the kingdom for her son Bharata. This is after Vālmīki's version, although there Laksmana is not mentioned in this connection. According to Dhaneśvara, the Vānaras do not interrupt Rāvana in his acquisition of Bahurūpā-vidyā. Again, we meet with a few unimportant changes-Aparājitā is called here Kausalyā, and Bhānukarna called Kumbhakarna (of course, after Vālmīki).
While condensing the story of Hemacandra (although the poet never states this) he has omitted many episodes, stories of previous births etc., as they have practically no significance for the course of the narrative.
(xiv) Punyacandrodayapurana of Krsnadāsa : Krsnadāsa wrote this Purāna in 1528 A. D. "Judged from the contents of the work as given by Rajendralal Mitra (Notices of Sanskrit MSS, Vol. VI, 70-74), it appears to belong to the tradition of Gunabhadra?."
(xv) Rāmacaritra of Devavijayaganin : In the year 1586 A. D. Devavijayaganin, a pupil of Rājavijayasūri, wrote a Rāmacaritra in prose. The author himself says that he is following Hemacandra's Rāmāyana. As the work is not published, it is not possible to say whether Devavijaya contributes towards the development of the story of Räma.
(xvi) Laghu-Trişasti of Meghavijaya Gunivara : Meghavijaya (17th century A. D.) composed his work after the famous Trisastiśaläkāpuruşacarita of Hemacandra. It is no more than an abridged edition of Hemacandra's Rāmāyana?.
After settling the problem of the origin of the Jain Rāmāyanas and tracing the development of the Rāma-story in Jain literature we now touch upon the question of the Jain influence on the later Hindu Rāmāyanas. The Purānas of the Hindus are of uncertain dates. Consequently, it is very difficult to trace the influence exerted by the Jains on the Hindu Purānas. On account of the difficulty of dates no strict proof is available whether the Jains have influenced the Hindu Purānas or vice versa. We, therefore, simply note the points which are common to the Jain Rāmāyaṇas and the Purānas of uncertain dates, and where we know certainly that the Hindu Purānas or works are later than the Jain versions concerned we treat these common traits as part of the Jain influence.
These points which are common to the Jain Rāmāyanas and later Hindu works or Purāņas of uncertain dates we set forth, for the sake of convenience, in a tabular form :