ABSTRACT
This story, drastically truncated here, would in essence be recognisable to all Jains, although the Digambaras reject certain elements of it, such as the transfer of Mahåv⁄ra’s embryo and his marriage to Ya¬odå. In its broadest form, it is located in the versions of the Universal History produced by the Digambara poet Jinasena (ninth century CE) and his pupil Gun˝abhadra and the flvetåmbaras fl⁄lån≥ka (ninth century CE) and Hemacandra (twelfth century CE) who drew upon themes scattered throughout the earlier scriptural and commentarial traditions which had doubtless also been elaborated orally. When examined critically as a literary phenomenon, the Universal History in its widest extent gives the impression of being a massive introduction to the biography of Mahåv⁄ra which itself expanded and evolved over a long period of time. We must now consider some of the features of that biography and the manner in which it presents a picture of Mahåv⁄ra as exemplar of the Jain path.
