Parishishtaparvan

The Parishishtaparvan (IAST: Pariśiṣṭaparvan) also known as the Sthaviravalicharitra (IAST: Sthavirāvalīcaritra) is a 12th-century Sanskrit mahakavya by Hemachandra which details the histories of the earliest Jain teachers. The poem comprises 3,460 verse couplets divided into 13 cantos of unequal length and is also notable for providing information on the political history of ancient India.^[1][2]

The Trishashtishalakapurushacharitra (IAST: Triṣaṣṭiśalākāpuruṣacaritra; The Lives of the Sixty-three Illustrious People), an epic Sanskrit poem on the key figures in Jainism , was composed by Hemachandra at the request of the Solanki king, Kumarapala. The Sthaviravalicharitra (The Lives of the Jain Elders) is considered a self-contained sequel to this work and is consequently referred to as the Parishishtaparvan or The Appendix.^[3]

While the Parishishtaparvan's biographies of early Jain personages are hagiographies where key moments in their lives are defined more by legend than historical fact, information on the historical and geographical settings of their lives as preserved by Jain tradition is incorporated within their stories. The period largely covered in the poem corresponds to c. 480 – c. 200 BCE and follows the growth of the kingdom of Magadha and the establishment of the Maurya Empire. According to Hemachandra, the sequence of rulers in the times of the Jains discussed was: Shrenika, Kunika, Udayin, the nine Nandas, Chandragupta Maurya, Ashoka, and Samprati. Hemachandra also speaks of Samprati being instrumental in the spread of Jainism further south.^[4]

The Parishishtaparvan was Hemachandra's last major work.^[3]

Translations

• Sthaviravalicarita or Pariśiṣṭaparvan, being an Appendix of the Triṣaṣṭi-puruṣacarita by Hemacandra (1932) by Hermann Jacobi^[5]
• The Lives of the Jain Elders (1998) by R.C.C. Fynes^[6]

Notes

1. Singh 2008, p. 26.
2. Fynes 1998, p. xxxiii.
3. Fynes 1998, p. xi.
4. Fynes 1998, pp. xxvii–xxix.
5. OCLC 83355568
6. Fynes 1998.

References

• Singh, Upinder (2008), A History of Ancient and Early Medieval India: From the Stone Age to the 12th Century, Pearson Education, ISBN 978-93-325-6996-6
• Hemacandra (1998), The lives of the Jain Elders, translated by Fynes, R. C. C., Oxford: Oxford University Press, ISBN 9780192832276