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Central Institute of Indian Languages, Mysore. National Book Trust India, New Delhi. Sahitya Akademi, New Delhi. |
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Figure 2: Schematic
model of the translation process for the life-stories in vrata-kathā
or nōlmpi-kathā. 2.3 Mention has
already been made of the ritualistic aspect of the life-stories of VaDDārādhane
and the recitation of the Kannada part of the story as the story narrated
during a vrata-kathā. Incidentally, Jains have several vratas of
this sort. They have been called nōmpis ‘vow’.2 In the body
of the text of VaDDārādhane itself there are several references both
to vratas and nōmpis. The two terms appear to complement each
other and overlap in their meaning, although their exact meanings are not
clearly evident. The names of the vows are given below and the page numbers
refer to Narasimhachar’s (1971) edition.
pancha-mahā-vrata (p.6) aNu-vrata (p.13), (pancānu-vrata) having vowed the eigith-day
(p.33), (aSTamiyam nōntu); refers to jīvadāyaSTami nōmpi.
Used here as a verb, ‘vowing’. aSTāhnika-mahime (p.33): a festival vow observed for eight days
starting from the eighth day to the full moon day of the full moon cycle in the
āSāDha, kārtīka, and phālguNa months. phālguNa-nandīśvara (p.106): a festival vow observed for eight days from
the eighth day to the full moon day of the full moon cycle in the phālguNa
month. ācāmla-vardhanamemba-nōmpi (p.66): a vow performed for the well-being of the
body. puruSa-vrata (p.112): celibacy, abstinence from sex, could be
observed by both men and women. brahmacharya-vrata (p.116): refers to purusa-vrata. guNa-vrata (p.127): daily restrictions that the Jaina monks
impose on themselves, dig (direction), desa (region) and danDa-virati
are the three types of vows. śikSā-vrata (p.127). simhanīSkriDita-nōmpi (p.172) an 80-day fasting vow in which the follower
keeps fast for 60 days and eats interspersingly for 20 days.
2.4 It is
important to note that the observation of a vow is more like a ritual
performance and ends with the recitation of the relevant story associated with
the ritualistic vow. One of them, jīvadāyaSTami-nōmpi ‘the vow of
showing kindness (compassion) to animal life’ is accompanied by the recitation
of the story of Yaśōdhara-carite (Raghavachar 1941). One of the
renderings of the texts has been called jīvadāyaSTami-nōmpiya-kathe
(‘The Story of the Vow of Kindness to Animal Life’) (16th century
C.E.). It starts with formulaic poems and the story of Yaśōdhara. It is worth
noting that medieval Karnataka used to treat multiple renderings of a text,
whether it was in Sanskrit, Prakrit or Kannada, as texts or krtis of
equal significance. One of the introductory verses of Yaīōdhara-carite
(1.2) elucidates this as follows. In
this world, this kRti has been rendered into Kannada based on the
earlier krtis in Sanskrit and Prakrit, rendered by earlier poets. Let
their wisdom provide support to me in the art of poetry
Table 1 provides
details about the popularity of jīvadāyaSTam-nōmpi as well as the
story that used to be recited at the end of the ritual. All these suggest that
the Jaina tellings and renderings of Prakrit stories were ritualistic texts
usually narrated in regional languages like Kannada, Tamil, Gujarati and Hindi
as part of ritualistic worship. There are at least eighteen tellings of the
text available, out of which five renderings are in Kannada, four each in
Sanskrit and Gujarati, two in Apabhrahmsha and one each in Prakrit, Tamil and
Hindi. The details of these texts are given in Table 1. This suggests the high
popularity of the vow, its ritual enactment and narration, and the model of
translation suggested earlier. The vow of jīvadāyaSTami, its ritual
and narration of the story in Kannada together constitute the entire ritual of
the vow. Yaśōdhara-carite (1.3) makes this point clear.
During the fasting of the followers (sravaka-jana)
in the vow of jīvadāyaSTami, this story (vastu-kathana) is
feast to the ears; having thought like this, kavibhāla-locana (‘Janna’)
composed this text.
Text Author
Language Period Samarāiccha-kahā Haribhadra Prakrit 8th C TriśaSTilakSaNa- mahāpurana Jinasena Sanskrit 9th C Tisaththi-mahāpurisa- guNālankāra Pushpadanta Apabhrahmsha 10th C Jasahara-cariu Pushpadanta Apabhrahmsha 10th C Yaśastilaka-campū Somadeva Sanskrit 10th C Yaśodhara-carite Vadiraja Sanskrit 11th C Yasōdara-kāppiyam ? Tamil 11th C Yaśōdhara-carite Janna Kannada 12th C Yyaśōdhara-carite Padumanabha Kannada 15th C Yaśōdhar- carite Chandravarni Kannada 15th C Jīvadayāstami-nōmpi ? Kannada 16th C Yaśōdhar-carite Jinachandra Suri Gujarati 16th C Yaśodhara-carite Devendra Gujarati 16th C Yaśodhara-carite Lavanyaratna Gujarati 16th C Yaśodhara-carite ? Kannada 16th C Yaśodhara-carite Manohara Dasa Gujarati 17th C Yaśodhara-carite Lakshmi Dasa Hindi 18th C Table1:
Table showing the details of multilingual renderings of
Yaśodhara-carite in Indian
languages. |
CiruttoNDar
‘little servant’ who is called Siriyāla in Kannada and Telugu, Sirāl SeTh in Marathi
and SeTh SaguN Shah in Gujarati, was historically known as Paranjyōti. He was
the Commander-in-Chief for the Pallava king Narasimha Varma. He is said to have
been responsible for the fall of Vatapi, the capital of the Chalukya king
Pulikeshi II in 642 C.E. Though rudimentary versions of his life are revealed
in verses composed by Sundarar (c 850 C.E.) and NambiyānDār Nambi (c 10th
cent. C.E.), it was SēkkiLār (1064 C.E.) who wrote the first detailed
hagiography of Ciruttondar. Nearly twenty retellings of his story could be
seen in Kannada and Telugu. At least one text in Marathi and an oral version in
Gujarati have been reported. In addition, in Karnataka there is a vow (vrata)
known as siriyāLa-seTTiya-vrata. There are also folk versions of the
ritual in Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh. The tellings and renderings of the
story of CiruttoNDar in Tamil come to an end with ŚēkkiLār. However, the
Kannada and Telugu hagiographers provide multiple renderings of the story
during the subsequent period. As Virasaivism gradually spread over
The story of
CiruttNDar had become a ritual enactment by 10th century C.E. By
the time the Tamil hagiography got composed, the story of the sacrifice of the
only son by CiruttoNDar and his wife had become worthy of worship resulting
in a folk temple cult as pointed out by Dahejia (1988).
Independent shrines to the saint and and his blessed
son Sirala were constructed in the 10th century as we know from an
inscription recording gifts for lighting of lamps in the shrines. In the year
A.D. 998 three small copper images of the Siruttondar family was dedicated to
the Tanjavur temple…Siruttondar festivals were celebrated yearly and an
inscription in the year A.D. 1003 tells us of the image of Sirala being carried
in procession from the Sirala shrine to the Siruttondar temple. Later records
detail the laying out of a special route for his procession, and inscriptions
also speak of festival to mark the occasion when Siva gave salvation to
Siruttondar.2.5 In order to demonstrate that the vrata-kathā or
nōmpi-kathā model of ritualistic tellings and renderings was not confined
to Jainism but was a wide spread practice among other sectarian groups as well,
we can look at Vīraśaivism. If we consider the cases of the Nāyanārs of Tamil
Nadu and the Vīraśaiva Śaranas of Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh, the
hagiographies depicting the life-stories of these saints were as sacred as, if
not more than, the Purānas depicting the sixty-four līlās of Śiva. In
Tamil, Kannada and Telugu, the hagiographies of these saints were written not
only before the compilation of the Śiva-purāna but also have remained as
popular as, if not more popular than, the Purānas. Let us look at the case of
CiruttoNDar, a Nāyanār among the sixty-three saints from Tamil Śaivism whose
story has been retold several times in Tamil, Kannada, Telugu and Sanskrit and
in literary, popular and folk versions.
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