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Studies in Jainology, Prakrit
301
established fact that Prakrit narrative literature has considerably influenced the modern Indian litcrature both Aryan and Dravidian and inculcated humanitarian values among the masses.
While moving in the field of Prakrit narrative literature, we can hardly ignore the great Brhatkathā of Gunādhya in Paisací Prakrit (c.1st Century A.D.) which is lost beyond recovery, but thrce Sanskrit epitomes of which have come down to us. Being of secular naturc, it stands in rank with the Rāmāyana and the Mahabharatha on the national level, in the sense that if the two great cpics influenced the bulk of the literary output of India by their religious concepts of dharma and mokșa, the Brhatkatha introduced a pure romantic concept in Indian literature as a whole - both oral and written. A number of folk-tales, some of which are found still in the oral traditions of modern Indian languages, have their ultimate sources in the Brhatkathā. Several interesting Sanskrit dramas like the Mrcchakatikam and the Svapnavāsavadattam and their romantic episodes are based on the legendary tales in it. Its high popularity led it to its different versions as found now in Sanskrit, Prakrit1 and Tamil.!? Durvinita (600 A.D.), who is said to have translated it into Sanskrit, might have, most probably, given its Kannada version too. I have noted an amusing sub-tale viz., of Sudame, in story No.1 of the Kannada Vaddārādhanc (c.925 A.D.) to have had its source in this Great Tale.18 This sub-tale in the Vaddarādhane is like a folk-tale and numerous such tales are found to have been current in modern Indian literature, both Aryan and Dravidian, written and oral. Prof.Eberhard considers folk-tale materials as fossilised social and religious history and in the light of this view too, we have to assess the value of Gunadhya's Great Tale.
The secular lyric is another alluring sphere of Prakrit literature. From the hoary past until the 1st century A.D., .except the two Samvada hymns in the 10th Book of the Rg-veda and a quoted line in Patañjali's Mahabhāsya, we hardly find anything
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