Vasudevahimdi Madhyama Khanda Part 1

Author(s): Dharmdas Gani, H C Bhayani, R M Shah
Publisher: L D Indology Ahmedabad

Page 72

Introduction
(2) Syuonymous componnds
Simultaneous use of two or more synonyms (this stylistic feature is familiar to us from the stylized descriptive passages of the Jain cano nical texts):
a for-foa'a 32.3; #East... 1991 alfaat 32.12-13, 51807-#fot-efsas 62.19-20, 075-00137-
P ETU:15 46.1, Anithafga-Ang 50.4,140.18, ***514-46.14, 9-777 121.5, -73-642-50.... EN 46.1819, 52-Afer 50.23.
5. Notes on the VHM Narratives and the BK tradition
It is far from our intention here to open the Pandora's Box that is the complex of problems relating to the orginial BK. and its numerous later avatars. We shall touch upon only a few major or minor points and issues specifically relating to or arising out of VHM.
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Sources of VHM
Jain doubts Dharmasenagani's statement that from the traditionally known one hundred girls born in the families of Vidyādharas, humans and Monkeys which were won by Vasudeva, Sanghadā sa narrated the accounts of twentynine only in twentynine Lambhas (of VH), deterred as he was by the enormity of the extent, and consequently he (i. e. Dharmasena) undertook to compose the remaining seventyone Lambhas. Jain suspects that the stories by Dharmasena were, except the Prabhāvati Lambha, the latter's own creation, composed from imagination and random borrowing, and having little or no tradition in their support. So far as the story of Prabhāvati is concerned, Jain says (and amply demonstrates in the main body of his work) that VHM has followed the KSS and BKM traditions. He is however open on the issue, because as he says he had utilised only the Prabhāvati-lambha of VHM.
Now if Dharmasena's most detailed, realistic and vivid account of Prabhāvati derives from an authentic BK tradition, it is quite likely that for the rest of his work too he might have relied substantially on earlier traditions. A comparison of the narrative contents of the first eighteen Lambhas of VHM with some KSS and BKM stories has yielded considerable amount of evidence in support of the above inference.