ABSTRACT
The Nand⁄, one of the flvetåmbara canonical texts which deals with scriptural hermeneutics, links the two great Sanskrit epics, the Mahåbhårata and the Råmåyan˝a, with the Veda as examples of mithyås¨tra, false scriptures which convey a message of violence (NSH p. 64). Although the precise sense in which these epics can be regarded as scripture is problematic, they are both of central significance for Hindus through their delineation of ideal types and exemplary situations and provision of perennial sources of reference for the manner in which Hindu civilisation has articulated its sense of self-perception. Adaptations of epic narrative of the sort produced by Jain writers would have been a necessary strategy for a socioreligious group which felt itself to be in certain respects both different from and yet at the same time part of a larger culture.
