An Old Version of the Jaina Ramayana

Summary

J.C. Jain’s article ‘An Old Version of the Jaina Ramayana’ undertakes a textual investigation into the earliest Jain retelling of the Ramayana narrative. Jain begins by noting that many Jain texts—including the Vasudevahindī, the Kathāsaritsāgara, and the Bṛhatkathāmanjarī—contain versions of the Rāma story, though the original Bṛhatkathā of Guṇāḍhya has been lostfile:///home/oai/share/520754-212-427.pdf#:~:text=%27rmina,the%20enumeration%20of%20these%2020. He proposes that the Vasudevahindī preserves the oldest Jain Ramayana and sets out to reconstruct it. The article compares key episodes of the Jain Ramayana with the Vālmīki Ramayana and later Jain adaptations. In Jain versions, the characters remain largely the same—Rāma, Lakṣmaṇa, Sītā and Rāvaṇa—but their roles and moral attributes are modified to align with Jain ethics. For instance, Jain narratives emphasise non‑violence: Rāma kills Rāvaṇa not out of passion but out of duty as a warrior, and in some versions he uses non‑lethal weapons or simply subdues Rāvaṇa. After fulfilling his worldly duties, Rāma renounces the world, becomes a Jain monk, practices severe austerities and eventually attains omniscience and liberation. Jain analyses linguistic features and narrative motifs to argue that these modifications are deliberate attempts by Jain authors to assimilate a popular epic into a Jain moral framework. He also examines variants across texts: some versions elevate Lakṣmaṇa as the true hero who kills Rāvaṇa, while Rāma remains relatively passive to maintain his non‑violent stance. The article places these narratives within the broader context of Jain literature, noting that Jain storytellers often appropriated Hindu epics to convey their teachings to lay audiences. Jain emphasises that the early Jain Ramayana likely served as a model for later adaptations and influenced the shaping of the Ramayana tradition across India. By tracing textual correspondences and divergences, he provides evidence for dating the Jain version and speculates on its relation to lost Prakrit or Paiśācī sources. The article also suggests that the inclusion of the Ramayana in Jain texts reflects the community’s engagement with mainstream cultural currents and its efforts to assert a Jain identity within a shared narrative heritage.