Treasury of Jain Tales

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

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treasure house of folk-tales or popular stories, parables, fables, fairy-tales, romantic and adventurous tales, mariners' fairy tales and legends.
(iii) Counterparts of Rāmāyana, Mahābhārata (and Harivainsa).
The Jains did not rest content with adopting popular epic themes such as the story of Krsna, the story of Draupadi, and others into their sacred literature and the commentaries on some of the sacred works, but they also wrote whole kävyas on the story of Rāma and of the Kauravas and Pandavas, which were stories immensely popular among the Vedic Hindus. The oldest Jain Prakrit kāvya (perhaps of the 4th century A.D. or even later), the Paü macariya (Padma-carita) by the poet Vimala Suri is a Jain version of the Rāmāyana. It is in pure Jain Māhārāstri and in the gātha metre. The life of Padma - Padma is another name of Rāma - is told in 118 cantos; they are only in partial agreement with Vālmiki's Ramayana. From the contents of this Prakrit epic, it is evident that Vimala Sūri knew Vālmiki's Rāmāyana. He finds fault with Välmiki for misrepresenting the true narrative of Rāma and claims that his version is a faithful representation. Vimala's work served as a model for most of the Jain versions of the story of Rāma presented in later works such as Padmapurāna44 of Ravisena (678 A.D.), Paümacariu of Svayambhū (middle of the 8th century A.D.), Cauppanna-mahāpurisacariya of Silācārya (868 A.D.), Mahapūranu of Puspadanta (965 A.D.), Kahävali of Bhadresvara (11th century A.D.) Trisastisalākāpurusa-carita of Hemacandra (latter half of the 12 th century A.D.) and others. Some salient features of the Jain Râmāyanas may be mentioned here: Whereas the hero of Valmiki's Rämāyana moves in an entirely Vedic Hindu atmosphere, in the Jain Rāmāyanas the religion of the Jina is very much to the fore. The Tirthankara Rsabha is glorified. The Vedic
44. In fact, Padmapurāna is merely an enlarged recension of
Pau macariya in Sanskrit, agreeing with it in all essential points.