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Studies in Jainology, Prakrit
to be explained to the lay followers or common people through narratives effectively presented at the concrete background of the universe of the Jaina ideology; and hence the Jaina Acaryas with their own logic, imagination and vision, appear to have stuffed the former core-conception of the world with numerous clements and details so as to serve their practical needs. Such phase of Jaina cosmography could have first taken its due shape along the constitution of the Jaina Purānas or Caritas”, and expanded later into other narratives like religious novels, tales, sub-tales etc. In this context it is essential on our part to remember that the Jainas have no cosmogony, because their cardinal philsophic tenet states that the universe, with its system, is anādinidhana - with neither beginning nor end. So it will not be wrong if we postulate that the early Jaina thinkers, unlike their Brāhmana brothers, having no need of spending their time and energy on reflecting over the origin of the universe, may have, with the above cited need, zealously worked out all possible details for their heavenly and hellish regions and the Vidyadhara Śrenis etc., with their wonderfully-concepted graded personalities, their abodes, their consorts, their cities and their movements and after all each having an identifiable and pleasing name etc., for instructing the above-cited doctrines to their lay followers in an interesting and entertaining manner.
Such move naturally enriched and boosted the Jaina narrative literature, first of all the Puranas or Caritas, the Prathamānuyoga, for any folk-talc, any historical or semi- historical cvent or personage, or any universal motif, could be adopted and conveniently converted into a Jaina narrative asset. Moreover, these cosmographical concepts, through such narratives, were imprinted on the minds of the lay followers as well as the young monks and became popular. Soon there also appeared exclusive standard works on Jain cosmography with well-knit patterns of details which were utilised profusely by the later Jaina narrators of Prakrit, Sanskrit, Hindi, Kannada etc., though by their timc such aspects
of cosmographic knowledge had become outdated. Jain Education International For Private & Personal Use Only
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