Doctrinal Passages of the Jain Rāmāyaõas (original) (raw)
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2022
Innovation traces how and why Jain authors at different points in history rewrote the story of Rāma and situates these texts within larger frameworks of South Asian religious history and literature. The book argues that the plot, characters, and the very history of Jain Rāma composition itself served as a continual font of inspiration for authors to create and express novel visions of moral personhood. In making this argument, the book examines three versions of the Rāma story composed by two authors, separated in time and space by over 800 years and thousands of miles. The first is Raviṣeṇa, who composed the Sanskrit Padmapurāṇa ("The Deeds of Padma"), and the second is Brahma Jinadāsa, author of both a Sanskrit Padmapurāṇa and a vernacular (bhāṣā) version of the story titled Rām Rās ("The Story of Rām"). While the three compositions narrate the same basic story and work to shape ethical subjects, they do so in different ways and with different visions of what a moral person actually is. A close comparative reading focused on the differences between these three texts reveals the diverse visions of moral personhood held by Jains in premodernity and demonstrates the innovative narrative strategies authors utilized in order to actualize those visions. The book is thus a valuable contribution to the fields of Jain studies and religion and literature in premodern South Asia.
2014
─ 1173 ─ As a prominent contemporary of the Buddha and MahAvIra, King AjAtaZatru/KUNika of Magadha was a well-known figure both to the Buddhists and to the Jains in ancient India. In comparing Buddhist and Jain sources, previous studies have generally focused on the shared story of the Buddhist and ZvetAmbara Jain traditions regarding AjAtaZatru's/KUNika's causing the death of his father in prison, 1) with less attention given to other stories about this figure. The present paper provides a preliminary survey of Buddhist and ZvetAmbara Jain versions of a hitherto little-explored story about AjAtaZatru/KUNika, namely, the story of his previous life as a vengeful sage or ascetic. 2) It is hoped that this survey may help us further appreciate the narrative lore shared by ancient Buddhists and ZvetAmbara Jains. Below I will first introduce two Buddhist versions of the story separately found in the CIvaravastu ("Section on Robes") of the MUlasarvAstivAda-vinaya and in the Chinese versions (Taishō Nos. 374 and 375) of the MahAyAna MahAparinirvANa-sUtra (MMPS)
Sanskrit tricks in the Jain grand narrative: discursive and literary devices in Jinasena’s Ādipurāṇa
Resisting and justifying changes II Testifying and legitimizing innovation in Indian and Ancient Greek Culture, ed. by Elisabetta Poddighe and Tiziana Pontillo. - Pisa : Pisa university press, 2023. – (Nuova biblioteca di Studi classici e orientali; 7), 2023
Jinasena’s Ādipurāṇa is a voluminous work from the 9th century CE, which along with its second part Uttarapurāṇa, written by Jinasena’s pupil Guṇabhadra in late 9th century CE, represents the Jain universal history genre built upon life stories of 63 illustrious men (Śalākāpuruṣa). Untypically for this genre of Jain texts, the work is not only written entirely in Sanskrit, the language of both Jinasena’s prior Brahmanical background and the Rāṣṭrakūṭa court at which he served under the protection of king Amoghavarṣa I1, but also employs a broad spectre of discoursive and literary devices characteristic of Sanskrit itihāsa-purāṇa, śāstra, and mahākāvya works. In Ādipurāṇa, several of these devices, representing the ruling Sanskrit culture, are synthesized and transformed in accordance with the distinctive aesthetics designed by the Digambara Jain author for the narrative illustrating the principles of his faith. The study aims to identify and describe them in relation to the primary purport of the work, which is an eulogistic explication of the Jain dharma. Its another objective is to present the Sanskrit narrative devices and their innovative synthesis constructed by Jinasena as a variety of grand narrative patterns, which implement large explanatory and normative schemes with the aid of persuasive techniques designed to create a sense of grandeur.
This paper focuses on the praśastis, "eulogies", which became a standard in Apabhraṃśa sandhibandhas, a literary style used almost exclusively by Digambara Jainas. It retraces the insertion of lengthy praśastis to Puṣpadanta's Mahāpurāṇu and, by looking at the works of Vibudha Śrīdhara and Raïdhū, it discusses its evolution to a means of social prestige for patrons. By indicating and analysing some of the information provided in these praśastis, the paper further explores their possibilities as historical sources, providing information about political, social, and religious history, for times and places of which other sources are sometimes limited.