Universal Values of Prakrit Texts

Author(s): Prem Suman Jain
Publisher: Bahubali Prakrit Vidyapeeth and Rashtriya Sanskrit Sansthan

Page 83

*
*
*
The paintings are framed exactly in the same way and have an identical size.
They are in the same colourful, lively and somewhat naïve style.
The ladies' clothes are painted in the same style, with stripes.
* Even more convincing: if the London manuscript and the Los Angeles page are put together, they match in perfect succession from the point of view of the contents and provide Raidhu's text for two of the first three successive and parallel rebirths of Yasodhara and Candramati:
peacock/ dog (3.1-3.6) [mongoose and snake (3.6 end, 3.7?-3.8)
fish and sumsumāra (3.9-3.11)
fol. 41 recto and verso (London) fol. 42 to 44; the text of this section is probably not very long, but it is most probably illustrated by one or more paintings location unknown] fol. 45 recto and verso (Los Angeles)
7. London, Los Angeles, India?
The Los Angeles page is ascribed the date of 1454 CE. This same date is given to the manuscript from which the pages reproduced as figs. 10-11 in Doshi 1978-79 and as fig. 23 in Doshi 1985 are taken (see above Section 5). Nothing can be checked since the colophon is not available in publications, as far as I know. Did P. Pal see it? He writes: "The colophon of this manuscript unfortunately does not include the author's name" (1993: 104).
Now, in Doshi 1978-79: 40 and 1985: 146 this manuscript is said to belong to the Shri Shantinath Shvetambara Mandir Old Delhi (Rupnagar). In Garg 1991: 32, it is given as belonging to the private collection of Mrs. Saryu Doshi. It is labelled "ni. pā. 2" and is said to be lacking the first 42 folios, so that only the second half is available. Earlier, R.R. Jain made a similar state
- 41 -