ABSTRACT
While Brahmā features prominently in Buddhist narratives, Jain stories have a greater focus on another of the key deities of epic and Purāṇic Hinduism, namely Viṣṇu. In particular, Jain storytellers went to great lengths to appropriate the two epic heroes that are said to be avatāras of Viṣṇu: Rāma and Kṛṣṇa. Both of these figures were absorbed into the Jain narrative tradition of recounting the history of the current half time cycle and the sixty-three illustrious beings that were born within it.1 These illustrious beings (śalākāpuruṣas or mahāpuruṣas) include twenty-four jinas, twelve cakravartins (universal emperors, ruling all of Bhāratavarṣa) and nine triads of vāsudevas, prativāsudevas and baladevas.2 According to the laws of the universe, the vāsudeva is a half-cakravartin (ruling over only half of Bhāratavarṣa) and he kills his adversary the prativāsudeva while his brother the baladeva remains a pious layman and eventually attains mokṣa. Rāma is identified as the eighth baladeva and Kṛṣṇa as the ninth vāsudeva, a category that appears to have been modelled on him. As well as featuring in the full Universal History or Mahāpurāṇa texts, Kṛṣṇa’s life is related in biographies of the jina Nemi (Kṛṣṇa’s cousin) and in Harivaṃśa Purāṇas from at least the eighth century.
