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literature. I am appending them to my introductory note because I thought it might help a review of our literature in the light of modern scholarship. These views struck me as most revealing at times even shocking but always stimulating.)
"We would like the reader to respond to whatever situation the following stories describe sympathetically because they are all genuinely human, even when a certain story goes on to condemn in outright terms the common human weakness to submit to the pleasures of the senses or be willing to be carried away by worldly happenings and the feelings they arouse or when it highlights passions that hold the mind and soul of man in their tight grip, or when it openly recommends a path of self-abnegation. These stories present saintly characters caught up in moments of temptation as well as men and women of weaker mettle that would like to give up pleasures and live a life of simplicity and purity, but really can't. They also tell us of how very difficult it is to give up pleasures but to give up desire for them is just impossible. Brahmadatta is a long drawn story of an unfortunate prince who has failed to achieve what his friend has succeeded in achieving. The story however has chosen for treatment atheme that is daringly modern, chosen from the same branch of knowledge from which the French novelist Emil Zola chose his themes - Heredity. The story becomes a painful yet fascinating account of a tremendous human bondage.
Many of the stories here are based on the typical Indian metaphysics of which karma is the sine qua non. This inevitably confines human life in a deterministic framework. Every such story spreads over an enormous time span that easily covers a couple of life times, and relies on Rebirth.
Rebirth need not be dismissed as a form of Indian absurdity. It is possible to see here the gropings of the captive India towards not only freedom but a better way of life ahead in future. To modern readers rebirth may look as a prologue to the bigger theme of evolution. The other important assumption of this theory
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| SR No. | 006762 |
| Book Title | Treasury of Jain Tales |
| Original Sutra Author | N/A |
| Author | V M Kulkarni |
| Publisher | Shardaben Chimanbhai Educational Research Centre |
| Publication Year | 1994 |
| Total Pages | 468 |
| Language | English |
| Classification | Book_English |
| File Size | 17 MB |