A History of Indian Literature v2.c20.s3.32

v2.c20.s3.32

The value of all these commentaries lies in their serving as a depositary of very many ancient, historical or semi-historical traditions on the one hand, and of a great mass of popular narrative themes on the other. Like the Buddhist monks, the Jaina monks, too, delighted at all times in adorning their sermons with the telling of stories, in converting worldly stories into legends of saints, in elucidating Jinistic doctrines by means of "examples," thus exploiting the inborn Indian love for fables in order to win over and retain as many adherents as possible for their religion. As we have seen, a part of these stories had already found a place in some texts of the Canon in the form of legends and ballads. The majority of them is to be found dispersed in great masses throughout the commentary literature which extends down the centuries. The narratives contained even in the later Sanskrit commentaries hark back to earlier sources: evidence for this is provided by the fact that the writers frequently do not tell them in the Sanskrit which would be their natural medium of narration, but in Prākrit, *i.e.*, the language in which the stories had come down to them from their predecessors.¹