Pristine Jainism : Jain Mythology

During medieval period people liked stories and biographies rather than direct teachings of religious principles and conduct rules. It was also easy to educate masses about good and bad deeds, and their consequences by examples of kings, traders, criminals through stories and biographies. Saints and scholars wrote several biographies known as Puranas.

This branch of Jain literature was classified as Prathmanuyog. Simultaneously scriptures on serious topics Dravyanuyog (mainly about soul, its attributes and properties); Karnanuyog (Interactions of soul and matter, Karma siddhanta, cosmology etc.) and Charnanuyog (Conduct rules) were also being written. However all serious topics could be more easily explained through stories. Prathmanuyog was thus a medium of teaching of all other subjects.

What is disturbing is that there are different versions of same characters by different Jain saints e.g. different version of Jain Ramayana (biography of Rama). It is necessary to sort out and remove these contradictions and bring out only one version of different biographies so that readers are not confused. It is also difficult to understand the objective of learned saints who though forbade the reading of pornographic literature being a serious transgression of the vow of celibacy, yet incorporated highly provocative passages in their writings. These should be deleted sooner the better. The exaggerated mention of ostentatious events on the occasions of conceiving, birth, renouncement, enlightenment and salvation of life-cycles of tirthankaras is also not convincing. There is tendency in followers to glorify their deities. The mention of continuous showers of precious stones for six months since conceiving of the tirthankar cannot be a fact. Such descriptions should be omitted lest it will only reflect on the validity and scientific character of Jain philosophy. In view of contradictions and objectionable passages, there is urgent need for thorough epistemological scrutiny and necessary corrections and deletions. Another problem with mythological literature is that it is considered as real history and there is ingrained fear in the minds of devotees that expressing doubt on scriptures is sinful which is unduly stressed by saints and scholars. The fact is that most of puranic literature is just stories and myths woven around some famous characters to explain principles, practices and tenets of Jainism.