Yasastilaka and Indian Culture

Author(s): Krishnakant Handiqui
Publisher: Jain Sanskruti Samrakshak Sangh Solapur

Page 68

3. THE STORY OF TASODHARA AND ITS SOURCES
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merchant Dharaṇa, is no better than Dhanasri: she first prefers a robber and then a merchant from China to her husband whom she attempts to murder. Two other women Gopavati and Viravati give evidence of similar propensities in stories which seem to be drawn from the life of the common people. Both the stories are mentioned in Jascharacarin of Puşpadanta (II. 9) and in Anagaradharmámrta of Asādhara (op. cit.), who alludes to Raktā, Gopavati and Viravati together, showing that the three women were notorious in Jaina tradition for their treachery and crimes. It may be mentioned that Dasakumāracarita (Book VI) and Kathasaritsāgara 10. 9 also contain a popular tale in which a woman attempts to murder her husband for the sake of a mutilated wretch, the two versions showing variations in details.
The placid complacence of Yasodhara after the discovery of his consort's orime is a noteworthy feature of our story and seems to go beyond the ordinary limits of forbearance. But the pardoning of the guilty wife is a trait that fits in with the religious character of the story; and the motif occurs also in the ancient Buddhist tale in which the Bodhisattva, while a king, once pardoned his chief queen, who had been found guilty of a serious offence and taken to the place of execution.' Kings are not, however, always lenient in regard to their guilty wives; and Jaina tradition records stories of how some of them dealt with their adulterous queens. The Vivagasuya, the eleventh Anga of the Jaina canon, records the story of the young priest Bahassaïdatta, who is surprised by king Udāyana of Kosambi in the inner apartments of his palace in the queen's company, and in consequence arrested and sentenced to death. Another story occurs in Hemacandra's Parisista paruan (2. 547 ti. ), in which one of the wives of a king pays a nocturnal visit to an elephant-driver, as in the story of Yasodhara, but is discovered; and a dreadful sentence is passed on the guilty pair.
POPULARITY OF THE STORY or YaśoduARA The popularity of the story of Yasodhara with Jaina writers seems to date from the tenth century. Puşpadanta who told the story in Apabhramsa verse in his Jasaharacaria in four Cantos was a contemporary of Somadeva, the author of Yasastilaka. The story was next narrated in
1 रक्ता देवरतिं सरित्यवनिपं रक्ताऽक्षिपत् पङ्गके, कान्तं गोपवती द्रवन्तमवधीच्छित्वा सपत्नीशिरः। शूलस्थेन मलिम्लुचेन
rag frETT afegn frada TASTE : IV. 77. See also Bhagavati
Arādhanā, 949–51, and Brhatkathā kośa, story Nos. 85-87. 2 'इमिना एव च भगवता राज्ञा सता अग्रमहिण्या: महापराधापराद्धाया वक्षस्थानप्राप्तायाःयाचिन्त्या अभयं दत्त
Mahāvastu, Vol. I, p. 132. 7