If the creation of a Jain court required the presence of a Jain king, it equally required inhabiting the courtly aesthetic norm of kāvya, heralding a moment when the Jain community began to look outside itself and to the Sanskrit Cosmopolis. As Jesse Ross
bhāṣitamugrādityairguṇairudāraissamagramugrādityaṃ | bhāṣitanamitajayamtaṃ samgramugrādityam ||
Ugrāditya, Kalyāṇakāraka: (Rāṣṭrabhāṣānuvādasahita), ed. Varhdamāna Pārśvanātha Śāstrī (Solapur: Setha Govindaji Ravaji Dosi, 1940), unnumbered verses, 747-748.
Knutson succinctly put it, “There was no king without kāvya in this world and no kāvya without a king.”43 Among the available Jain materials from Amōghavarṣa’s court, the
poetic works of Jinasēna mark a clear development in how Jains were using Sanskrit in their literary endeavors. Through the idiom of kāvya, Jain authors, starting with Jinasēna, were able to circulate their religious narrative literature within the environment of the court and within a larger imagined social order bound together by Sanskrit and Sanskrit aesthetics. In so doing. Jain poets were key actors working in discrete locals through which the Sanskrit Cosmopolis was produced and reproduced
I engage in an extended reading of Jinasēna's Ādipurāṇa in chapter two as the of ur-text for the Ādipurāṇa tradition, so here I want to consider his first poetic work, the
Pārśvābhyudaya, thatexemplifies this turn towards a greater Jain engagement with Sanskrit court poetry during the medieval period. Through a poetic device called
samasyāpūrti—also called samasyāpūraṇa and pādapūraṇa—the Pārśvābhyudaya incorporates one to three lines of Kāḷidāsa's Mēghadūta (The Cloud Messenger) within each verse of Jinasēna's original composition in order to narrate the story of the twenty- third Tīrthaṅkara Pārśvanātha.44 Scholarly interest in the Pārśvābhyudaya has been
43 Knutson, Into the Twilight of Sanskrit Court Poetry, 10.
44 Jinasēna’s Pārśvābhyudaya takes its premise, unsupplied in the poem itself, from a
previous life of the Jina Pārśva when he was born as Marubhūti. While Marubhūti was away in battle, his brother Kamaṭha seduced Marubhūti’s wife. When the King came back from battle he exiled Kamaṭha for his misdeeds. In spite of violating his marriage, Marubhūti loved his brother and searched all over for him. When Marubhūti found Kamaṭha meditating in anger he fell at his feet but to no avail. At this point, Kamaṭha developed an irrational hatred for Marubhūti and in each succeeding life Kamaṭha attempted to kill his faultless brother. It is at this point in the story that the narrative of the Pārśvābhyudaya picks up with Kamaṭha, now born as a yakṣa named Śambara, who spots his brother, incarnated as Pārśva, mediating on a riverbank. He tries to distract Pārśva from his meditation in order to kill him in battle. Śambara's desire to kill Pārśva is rooted in his hope that upon Pārśva’s death he will assume the form of a cloud and take a
limited to mining the text to recreate Kāḷidāsa's Mēghadūta, an approach that renders the
Pārśvābhyudaya a mere depository for a better or more important Sanskrit work.45 Such a
limited reading of the text neglects the very originality that Jinasēna achieved through this particularly innovative use of samasyāpūrti and fails to recognize the literary courtly aspirations that motivated Jinasēna's text.
Padmanabh Jaini refers to samasyāpūrti as a "favorite pastime of Sanskrit
poets."46 However, within Sanskrit literary theory, this seemingly popular poetic practice
largely went untheorized.47 One explanation for this could be that samasyāpūrti was so
pervasive that it escaped theorization or that the process of samasyāpūrti was primarily
message to Śambara's former lover (who was also Pārśva's wife). Śambara, already imagining Pārśva as a cloud, describes in detail the incredibly beautiful landscape that he will observe on the way to their shared love. When Pārśva does not respond to these various methods of distraction Śambara becomes even more enraged. Pārśva's guardian deity, a snake named Dharaṇēndra, intervenes and converts Śambara to the Jainism after which Pārśvanātha achieves liberation.
45 Kalidasa, The Meghadūta: As Embodied in the Pārśvabhyudaya with the Commentary
of Malinātha Arragned Accordingly and a Literal English Translation, Various Readings, Critical Notes, and an Introductory Essay Determining the Date of Kālidāsa From the Latest Antiquarian Researches (Poona: 1894).
46 Padmanabh S. Jaini, “Bhaṭṭāraka Śrībhūṣaṇa’s Pāṇḍavapurāṇa: A Case of Jaina
Sectarian Plagiarism,” in Collected Papers on Jaina Studies, ed. Padmanabh S. Jaini (New Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass, 2000), 372.
47 For example, samasyāpūrti isnot included in the sixteen types of riddles (prahēlikas)
given in Daṇḍin's Kāvyadarśa. Instead, this device first appears in Hēmacandra’s
Kāvyānuśāsana, a Jain poetic treatise composed in eleventh-century Gujarat. See the commentary on verse 2.10 in which it is referred to as “samyasyāpūraṇa” and
“pādasamasyā.”Rasiklal C. Parikh, Kāvyānuṣāsana [with Alaṃkārachūḍāmaṇ and
Viveka] by Āchārya Hemachandra with An Anonymous Ṭippaṇa, Vol. 1 (Bombay: Sri Mahavira Jaina Vidyalaya, 1938),18. Given Hēmacandra’s deep familiarity with
Jinasēna's work as evidenced by his Triṣaṣṭiśalākāpuruṣacarita (a Śvētāmbara re- rendering of the Jinasēna and Guṇabhadra’s Digambara Mahāpurāṇa), it seems quite
likely that he also read Jinasēna’s Pārśvābhyudya. It thus makes a great deal of sense that this particular Jain author—having read the Pārśvābhyudaya—would emend the standard list of prahēlikas to include samasyāpūrti.
practiced in oral courtly culture.48 This later theory is supported by Allison Busch who
notes that such literary usages are the "textual embodiment of the oral practice of
samasyāpurti from the courtly sabhā."49 We, of course, know that medieval Sanskrit
literary production was intimately intertwined with oral literacy and presentation in the court, poetic gatherings, or in witty banter with skilled courtesans.50 This type of collective and social poetic engagement is textually depicted in the Bāllala's
Bhōjaprabandha, a collection of fanciful tales about the court of the Paramāra king Bhōja (1011-1055 C.E).51 The Bhōjaprabandha alsoincludes many scenes of the poet Kāḷidāsa masterfully completing samasyāpūrti challenges given to him by his friend King Bhōja. Although echoing the dynamic reduplicated in the Pārśvābhyudaya, the connection between Kāḷidāsa and samasyāpūrti in the Bhojaprabandha is purely anecdotal.
However, it neatly demonstrates the centrality of oral games, and specifically the practice
48Samasyāpūrti is still an element of modern poetic competitions in South Asia including
avadhānaṃ performances that demonstrate an individual’s mastery in memory, multitasking, poetic improvisation, and so on, which remain popular in in Andhra Pradesh and to a lesser extent Karnataka. See for example, The Hindu’s recent coverage of aṣṭāvadhānaṃ in coastal Andra. Velcheti Subrahmanyam, “Marathon Celebration of Avahanam,” TheHindu.com. Published 06/25/2015, accessed 09/29/2015.
http://www.thehindu.com/features/friday-review/avadhana-saptaham-a-weeklong- celebrations-of-ashtavadhanams/article7353855.ece
49 Allison. Busch, Poetry of Kings: The Classical Hindi Literature of Mughal India (New
York: Oxford University Press, 2011), 85.
50 For example, texts like Rājaśēkhara’s Kāvyamīmāṃsā and Kṣemendra’s
Kavikaṇṭhābharaṇa develop an idealized picture of a day in the life of a Sanskrit poet who dedicates one part of their day to gathering with follow poets in literary salons (kāvyagoṣṭhīs) in which they engaged in oral games like samasyāpūrti. Siegfried Lienhard, A History of Classical Poetry: Sanskrit, Pali, Prakrit (Wiesbaden:
Harrassowitz, 1984), 14-15.; Ali, Courtly Culture and Political Life in Early Medieval India, 87. Furthermore, according to Vātsyāyana's Kāmasūtra, samasyāpūrti is one of the sixty-four arts over which a skilled and clever woman should have command. Wendy Doniger and Sudhir Kakar, trans. Vatsyayana Kamasutra (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009), 14-15.
of samasyāpūrti, within courtly life. The Pārśvābhyudaya is the earliest example we have of the textualization of this oral practice.
While Jinasēna's use of samasyāpūrti is unique within Sanskrit literary history, his invocation of Kāḷidāsa is not; Kāḷidāsa was a figure of literary celebrity, and his works circulated immediately and widely within medieval India. From the perspective of Jain poets writing in the medieval Deccan, the centrality of Kāḷidāsa within the Sanskrit cosmopolis crystalized particularly early vis-à-vis his likely fifth-century date. For example, in a Cālukya inscription at Aihoḷe (634-35 C.E.), the Jain poet Ravikīrti details
the lineage of the Cālukya dynasty and the military exploits of his patron Pulakēśi II in aesthetically and metrically complex Sanskrit that echoes themes within Kāḷidāsa's
Raghuvaṃśa.52 This praśasti culminates with Ravikīrti trumpeting his poetic fame
through a comparison with Bhāravi and Kāḷidāsa.53 This inscription illustrates the place
that Kāḷidāsa occupied within the Sanskrit canon and in the minds of Jain literati; he is the poet to whom other poets compared themselves in order to demonstrate their literary merit.
In this vein, Jinasēna's self-consciously invokes Kāḷidāsa's Mēghadūta within the same verse of praise to Amōghavarṣa referenced above:
This poem, incorporating the cloud poem of Kāḷidāsa,
abounds in virtues, is devoid of faults, and diminishes other poetry. Let it endure until the end of time.
52 F. Kielhorn, “No. 1—Aihole Inscription of Pulikesin II.; Saka-Samvat 556,” EI Vol. 6,
1-12. Kielhorn suggests that verses 17-32, which detail Pulakēśi's territorial conquests, are modeled on Raghu’s digvijaya in chapter four of Kāḷidāsa's Raghuvaṃśa. Ibid., 4.
53 As gestured to in the introduction, a number of other Jain poets beyond Ravikīrti also
emmulated and celebrated Kāḷidāsa. For example, Asaga—a bilingual Sanskrit and Kannada ninth-century poet—wrote the no longer extant Karnāṭaka
Kumārasambhavakāvya in Kannada and the Sanskrit poet Jayaśēkhara wrote the Jaina Kumārasambhava.
Let the unfailing rain cloud, King Amōghavarṣa, forever protect the earth.54
I read this simultaneous poetic eulogization of Amōghavarṣa and Kāḷidāsa as symbolically expressing Jinasēna’s dual embrace of the king and the larger Sanskrit literary tradition of which Kāḷidāsa was emblematic. In formally binding his poetry to the poetry of Kāḷidāsa’s Mēghadūta, Jinasēna positions himself as a worthy and capable interlocutor in direct conversation with the preeminent poet of the Sanskrit tradition.
Jinasēna's selection of the Mēghadūta from among Kāḷidāsa's oeuvre is again unsurprising. As its title suggests, the Mēghadūta follows the journey of a cloud sent as a messenger from an exiled yakṣa to his bereft lover. This poem inspired countless
imitations—with a variety of messengers including clouds, birds, bumble bees, and so on—such that it became a distinct genre called sandēśa kāvya or dūta kāvya, both which translate to messenger poetry. As Yigal Bronner and David Shulman have noted, sandēśa
kāvya is "quite possibly the most productive defined genre in all of Sanskrit poetry."55
They go on to identify a thirteenth-century sandēśa kāvya "boom" that generated a substantial amount of poetry that brought to bear the translocal expressive capacity of Sanskrit on distinctly local spaces.56 Predating the bulk of sandēśa kāvya by several centuries, Jinasēna's Pārśvābhyudaya participates in many features that come to define the sandēśa genre while resisting its most prominent feature: localization.57 Rather than
54
bahuguṇamapadoṣaṃ kālidāsasya kāvyaṃ | malinitaparakāvyaṃ tiṣṭhatādāśaśāṅkaṃ
bhuvanamavatu devassarvadāmōghavarṣaḥ || PA 4.70
55 Yigal Bronner and David Shulman, “’A Cloud Turned Goose’: Sanskrit in the
Vernacular Millennium,” The Indian Economic and Social History Review 43.1 (2006): 12.
56 Ibid., 12.
tracing his local landscape as many later poets do, Jinasēna formally adheres to
Kāḷidāsa's spatial trajectory through Rāmagiri, the Revā River, the Amrakūta Mountain, Ujjain, Bhramāvarta, and so on and so forth. For example, Jinasēna describes the cloud visiting the Āmrakūta Mountain:
When you first ascended to the mountain peak,
doubt was born in the innocent Vidyadhara ladies: The color of an oiled braid,
is this a black serpent, girthing the mountain in its coils? Or perhaps it is a garland,
strung with the blue lotuses of the earth-bearing Āmrakūta Mountain?58
The bolded line of this verse is the samasyāpūrti line drawn from verse 1.18 of the
Mēghadūta:
When you first ascended to the mountain peak, its edges coved with mango trees, shining with ripe fruit
appearing like the breast of the world, dark in the middle surrounded by whiteness, it is certainly a worthy sight for divine couples.59
Each line of the Mēghadūta verse describing the Āmrakūta Mountain becomes its own stand-alone verse in the Pārśvābhyudaya thereby intensifying the landscape found in Kāḷidāsa. Yet, the familiarity of the cloud's journey is also transformed into something entirely new through Jinasēna's graphing onto it a Jain religious world: Rāmagiri is marked by the footsteps of the Jina, the Mahākāla temple at Ujjain is transformed into a
that uses the genre of Sanskrit messenger poetry to narrate an aerialjourney through south India, and Tamil Nadu in particular. Ibid, 1-2.
58
kṛṣṇāhiḥ kiṃ valayitatanur madhyam asyātiśete kiṃ vā nīlōtpalaviracitaṃ śekharaṃ bhūbhṛtaḥ syāt | ity āśañkāṃ janayati purā mugdhavidyādharīṇāṃ
tvayy ārūḍhe śikharam acalaḥ snigdhaveṇīsarvaṇe || PA 1.70
59
channōpāntaḥ pariṇataphaladyotibhiḥ kānanāmrais tvayy ārūḍhe śikharam acalaḥ snigdhaveṇīsavarṇe | nūnaṃ yāsyaty amaramithunaprekṣaṇīyām avasthāṃ
forest for Śaiva ascetic practice in the middle of which sits the Mahākāla Jain temple, and so on. The locales of the Mēghadūta do not change in the Pārśvābhyudaya, but are instead elaborately refashioned into a Jain landscape. Within the larger project of Jinasēna and the Jain literati of Amōghavarṣa’s court, the Pārśvābhyudaya was a text written to transform the cosmopolitan model provided by Kāḷidāsa into something distinctly Jain. Or, alternatively, Jinasēna’s Pārśvābhyudaya suggests that Jainism was always already there within the Sanskrit imaginary; it just required a skillful enough poet to highlight its presence.
If Jinasēna's goal was to write a Sanskrit poem that would circulate in the Sanskrit cosmopolis, then he in many ways achieved this goal. Although likely not Jinasēna's intended audience, West Indian Śvētāmbara Jain writers emulated the Pārśvābhyudaya
by writing a surfeit of Sanskrit sandēśa kāvya using samasyāpūrti from the 14th-17th centuries.60 The samasyāpūrti feature of the Pārśvābhyudaya meant thatit was only
legible in Sanskrit. To translate the Pārśvābhyudaya would be to erase the poetic play enacted in each verse with the creative incorporation of the Sanskrit lines of the
Mēghadūta. As such, the Pārśvābhyudaya provides a model for other poets to use
samasyāpūrti in a similar fashion, but it was untranslatable in an increasingly Kannada literary world that develops after the ninth century within the western Deccan. The local in the form of the vernacular was quite literally unavailable as a linguistic avenue for this style of cosmopolitan poetry. By inhabiting the idiom of Sanskrit kāvya, Jinasēna's very goal was to write beyond the local—and we could perhaps include here the internal—and instead reach out to a wider audience for whom such an idiom was meaningful. To make
60 For example, Mēghavijaya’s Mēghadūtasamasyālēkha incorporates Kāḷidāsa’s
this project even more explicit, the Pārśvābhyudaya incorporates the Mēghadūta and, in doing so, reproduces Kāḷidāsa as the preeminent poet of the Sanskrit cosmopolis. Thus, Jinasēna both inhabits and reproduces the Sanskrit cosmopolis to which he imagines himself addressing his work. It is this type of reproduction—within a field of constant reproductions—that enabled the cosmopolitan literary and cultural formation to obtain consistency and stability; this is what it meant to be Jain and cosmopolitan.