2023-02-23 18:48:27 by ambuda-bot
This page has not been fully proofread.
49
chronological difficulty of making Bāṇa and Mayura, of the
seventh century, contemporaries of Bhoja, who reigned four hun-
dred years later. A search of the historical records¹ reveals no
Bhoja as early as the seventh century, with whom the well-known
Bhoja of Dhärā and Ujjain might have been confounded in the
minds of Ballala, Merutunga, and the Jain commentators, and
we are therefore prone to conclude that the association of Mayūra
and Bāṇa with Bhoja is perhaps another of those fabrications of
the Jains, who have taken as great liberties with the king of
Dhārā as they did with Manatunga, bringing the one from the
eleventh century and the other from the third, and making them
associate as contemporaries in the seventh.
GENERAL INTRODUCTION
THE CREDIBILITY OF JAINA TRADITION
Bühler's opinion. As a matter of fact, our Jaina tale and the
Bhojaprabandha illustrate so well what Bühler has said of the
credibility, or rather, incredibility, of the Jain historical works,
that I cannot refrain from quoting the most pregnant of his
words in support of some of the conclusions I have here reached.
'The objects,' he says, 'with which the Caritas and Prabandhas
were composed, were to edify the Jain community, to convince
them of the glory and power of the Jain religion, or, in cases
where the subject is a purely secular one, to provide them with
an agreeable entertainment. . . . In particular, must it be admitted
that the persons introduced in the older, as well as in the more
recent narratives, are really historical characters. Although it
is frequently the case that an individual is introduced at a period
earlier or later than that to which he really belonged, or that the
most absurd stories are told with regard to him, yet there is no
case forthcoming in which we could affirm with certainty that a
man named by these chroniclers is a pure figment of the imagina-
tion. On the contrary, nearly every freshly discovered inscrip-
tion, every collection of old manuscripts, and every really his-
¹ Cf. Duff, Chronology, Index.
I have given above (p. 42, note 5) my authority for classifying the
Bhojaprabandha as a Jain work.
5
chronological difficulty of making Bāṇa and Mayura, of the
seventh century, contemporaries of Bhoja, who reigned four hun-
dred years later. A search of the historical records¹ reveals no
Bhoja as early as the seventh century, with whom the well-known
Bhoja of Dhärā and Ujjain might have been confounded in the
minds of Ballala, Merutunga, and the Jain commentators, and
we are therefore prone to conclude that the association of Mayūra
and Bāṇa with Bhoja is perhaps another of those fabrications of
the Jains, who have taken as great liberties with the king of
Dhārā as they did with Manatunga, bringing the one from the
eleventh century and the other from the third, and making them
associate as contemporaries in the seventh.
GENERAL INTRODUCTION
THE CREDIBILITY OF JAINA TRADITION
Bühler's opinion. As a matter of fact, our Jaina tale and the
Bhojaprabandha illustrate so well what Bühler has said of the
credibility, or rather, incredibility, of the Jain historical works,
that I cannot refrain from quoting the most pregnant of his
words in support of some of the conclusions I have here reached.
'The objects,' he says, 'with which the Caritas and Prabandhas
were composed, were to edify the Jain community, to convince
them of the glory and power of the Jain religion, or, in cases
where the subject is a purely secular one, to provide them with
an agreeable entertainment. . . . In particular, must it be admitted
that the persons introduced in the older, as well as in the more
recent narratives, are really historical characters. Although it
is frequently the case that an individual is introduced at a period
earlier or later than that to which he really belonged, or that the
most absurd stories are told with regard to him, yet there is no
case forthcoming in which we could affirm with certainty that a
man named by these chroniclers is a pure figment of the imagina-
tion. On the contrary, nearly every freshly discovered inscrip-
tion, every collection of old manuscripts, and every really his-
¹ Cf. Duff, Chronology, Index.
I have given above (p. 42, note 5) my authority for classifying the
Bhojaprabandha as a Jain work.
5