Pramāṇa · Search · About · API

A History of Sanskrit Literature c20.s2: 2. The Didactic Tale

A History of Sanskrit Literature c20.s2

Language
English

2. The Didactic Tale

c20.s2.1

The tale which is aimed directly at edification rather than amusement is specially richly presented in Jain literature; the Jains were very fond of stories, but they demanded a moral, and hence their writers were often led to spoil good stories such as the legends of Vikramāditya by seeking to make the participants in high adventure rather tedious exponents of Jainism. First place among these works must be assigned to the *Pariśiṣṭaparvan*,¹ a supplement to his epic *Triṣaṣṭiśalākāpuruṣacarita* by Hemacandra. In it he deals with the oldest teachers of the Jain faith, and the tales he relates are no longer mythic and epic, but distinctly of the ordinary variety of folk-tale. We hear, for instance, of the incest of brother and sister, children of a hetaira; it is characteristic that the situation is less appreciated on its tragic side than from the point of view of the relationships resulting, a point raised in more innocent circumstances in the last of the tales of the Vampire. The historical figure of Candragupta is made the subject of strange legends, one of the most curious making out that he died a pious Jain.² We are told³ of the monk who showed the constancy required for living with a hetaira during the whole rainy season without breaking his vow of chastity; another, who had shown courage enough to spend the same period in the company of a lion, essays the task but fails; piety however requires that the hetaira should convert him once more to the ways of virtue and herself become a nun.⁴

c20.s2.2

¹ Ed. H. Jacobi, BI. 1891; sel. trans. J. Hertel, Leipzig, 1908; Keith, JRAS. 1908, pp. 1191 f.

c20.s2.3

² Smith (EHI. pp. 154, 458) strangely believes this legend.

c20.s2.4

³ viii. 110 ff.

c20.s2.5

⁴ i. 90 ff. (Valkalacīrin) is a variant of Ṛṣyaśṛṅga; ii. 446 ff., the ordeal of an adulteress, is trans. J. J. Meyer, *Isoldes Gottesurteil* (1914), pp. 130 ff.

c20.s2.6

The Jain Caritras and Purāṇas which contain many legends do not normally attain the level of literature, but more importance attaches to the elaborate allegory of human life in the form of a tale written in 906 by the renowned author Siddha or Siddharṣi. A late and doubtless unreliable authority⁵ tells that he was induced to adopt Jainism because his young wife and his mother, annoyed at his late hours, one night insisted on shutting the door on him, so that he went to the always open door of some Jains and refused to give up his intention of becoming a Jain monk. The same authority puts him down as a cousin of the famous poet Māgha. In point of fact the *Upamitibhavaprapañcākathā*,⁶ which is in prose with considerable numbers of stanzas interposed from time to time, is by no means badly written, and the author has kindly supplied a key at the end of the introduction to the allegory, so that it is not difficult to follow. His Sanskrit, which he deliberately chose because it was a sign of culture, is not difficult—indeed, he promises that it will be as easy to follow as Prākrit, but the impression of the work as a whole is, as in the case of most allegories, one of unrelieved dreariness, no doubt partly due to the extreme difficulty in making anything picturesque out of the dry and scholastic Jain tenets and the somewhat narrow views of life prevalent in Jain circles.

c20.s2.7

⁵ The *Prabhāvakacaritra* of Prabhācandra and Pradyumna Sūri (1250 A. D.), a continuation of Hemacandra's *Pariśiṣṭaparvan*.

c20.s2.8

⁶ Ed. BI. 1899 ff. Trans. A. Ballini, GSAI. xvii–xix, xxi–xxiv.

c20.s2.9

Of simpler type are the many Kathās or Kathānakas in which well-known *motifs* are adapted to illustrate Jain tenets. These are numerous in the Prākrit literature, being preserved both in commentaries on the canon and separately, and in Sanskrit form they tend to be late. Two interesting tales are the *Campaka-çreṣṭhikathānaka*¹ and the *Pālagopālakathānaka*² of Jinakīrti, who wrote in the first half of the fifteenth century. The former takes the form of a frame story enclosing three tales, one of Rāvaṇa's vain effort to avoid fate, while in the latter we have with other matter a version of the tale of a woman who accused of attempts on her honour the youth who has refused to yield to her seductions. The *Samyaktvakaumudī*³ illustrates the plan of inserting tales within a narrative; the pious Arhaddāsa relates to his eight wives and they to him how they obtained true religion (*samyaktva*), their tales being overheard both by a king who wanders about his capital and a thief. On the other hand the *Kathākoça*,⁴ also of unknown date, is a series of tales without connexion, in bad Sanskrit with verses in Prākrit, which gives a very poor Jain version of the *Nala*.⁵

c20.s2.10

¹ A. Weber, SBA. 1883, pp. 567 ff., 885 ff.; J. Hertel, ZDMG. lxv. 1-51, 425-70.

c20.s2.11

² J. Hertel, BSGW. lxix. 4; *Indische Erzähler*, vii (1922); Bloomfield, TAPA. liv. 164 ff.

c20.s2.12

³ A. Weber, SBA. 1889, pp. 731 ff.

c20.s2.13

⁴ Trans. C. H. Tawney, London, 1895.

c20.s2.14

⁵ Hemavijaya's *Kathāratnākara* is trans. Hertel. Rājaçekhara (14th cent.) in his *Antarakathāsaṁgraha* (cf. Pullé, SIFI. i. 1 ff.; ii. 1 ff.) has a version of the judgement of Solomon (Tessitori, IA. xlii. 148 ff.; Hertel, *Geist des Ostens*, i. 189 ff.).

Linked texts (7)