Abstract
Indian literary traditions, both religious and non-religious, have dealt with literature in a fluid way, repeating and reusing narrative motifs, stories and characters over and over again. In recognition of this, the current paper will focus on one particular textual tradition within Jainism of works titled Dharmaparīkṣā and will trace its circulation. This didactic narrative, designed to convince a Jain audience of the correctness of Jainism over other traditions, was first composed in the tenth century in Apabhraṃśa and is best known in its eleventh-century Sanskrit version by the Digambara author Amitagati. Tracing it from a tenth-century context into modernity, across both classical and vernacular languages, will demonstrate the popularity of this narrative genre within Jain circles. The paper will focus on the materiality of manuscripts, looking at language and form, place of preservation, affiliation of the authors and/or scribe, and patronage. Next to highlighting a previously underestimated category of texts, such a historical overview of a particular literary circulation will prove illuminating on broader levels: it will show networks of transmission within the Jain community, illustrate different types of mediation of one literary tradition, and overall, enrich our knowledge of Jain literary culture.
Highlights
Indian literary traditions, both religious and non-religious, have dealt with literature in a fluid way, repeating and reusing narrative motifs, stories and characters over and over again
Pavanavega is converted and accepts the vow of a Jain layman. From this brief overview of the content of the Dharmaparıks.ā, it should be clear that this relatively understudied narrative is interesting to examine from the angle of literary circulation, since it tells us something about the way Jains saw their own place in society
Ihave only included the manuscripts of Dharmaparıks.ā texts of which I know for certain they contain the story of Manovega and Pavanavega, which is the ‘textual tradition’ I am studying
Summary
As Pollock (2006) has stressed, the invention, diffusion, and conquest of manuscript culture, by which literary culture materialized, had a ‘historic’ impact on further literary developments in India (p. 77). From this brief overview of the content of the Dharmaparıks.ā, it should be clear that this relatively understudied narrative is interesting to examine from the angle of literary circulation, since it tells us something about the way Jains saw their own place in society It informs us of a specific attitude of the Jains, throughout time and space, towards other traditions and their religious texts, namely an attitude of counteractive appropriation by means of satire. The following table (Table 1) shows the authors, with date and language, of Dharmaparıks.ās that are confirmed to contain the story of Manovega and Pavanavega, and are a retelling or translation of an older text. Ihave only included the manuscripts of Dharmaparıks.ā texts of which I know for certain they contain the story of Manovega and Pavanavega, which is the ‘textual tradition’ I am studying.
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