Vasupujya Charitam

Author(s): Jain Dharm Prasarak Sabha
Publisher: Jain Dharm Prasarak Sabha

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narrate the edifying exploits of king Padmottara who in his next existence became Vasupujya. The last two sargas describe the birth, life, and spiritual career of Vasupujya. With this groundwork of our poem, however, are interWoven a number of Kathas, nineteen on the whole, in order to exemplify some of the funda-mental doctrines of the Jains, a demonstration of which is given either in the principal narration or in the several Kathas themselves.
In the table of contents of these Kathas(1). I enumerate them with such particulars as the reader may desire to have. It may be added that I have given a detailed analysis in Italian of the contents of the Vasupujyacharita in the first and second Volumes of Rivista degli Studi Orientali, Rome 1907-08.
(1). Of these Kathas, the first (I, 66-612: the King Punyadhya) treats of merit (punya ) the second, intercalated in the first (I, 423-567 ; Hamsa and Kesava) on the importance of the vow not to eat during the night (bhogavirati ); the third (II, 12-600: Ratisara) on liberality (dana); the fourth (II, 607-1369: Sanatkumara and Sringarasundari, ) on exercises in the moral restraints (sila ); the fifth (II, 1375-1528: · Samvara)con austerities ( tapas); the sixth (II, 1534-2170: Chandrodara) on the meditations bhavana); the seventh (IV, 24-176: Vikrama ) on true faith (samyaktva); the eight (IV, 182