Sarga 40 reverts to the story of Krishna, with Jarāsandha’s next attack on the Yādavas. Jarāsandha wants to avenge the death of Kamsa, his son-in-law, and sends his son Kālayavana and his brother Aparājita after the Yādavas, but to no avail.Īs a long interlude Jinasena here inserts the account of the conception, birth and consecration of the Tīrthankara Nemi, son of Samudravijaya, the eldest of the Daśārhas and cousin of Krishna (37–39). Krishna is reunited with his biological parents and Ugrasena is reinstalled as the king of Mathurā. Krishna and Baladeva take part and triumph, with Krishna ultimately killing Kamsa. Kamsa challenges the cowherds to a wrestling match in Mathurā. The boy, Krishna, grows up in the gokula where he survives several attacks of Kamsa (35–36). The girl is disfigured by Kamsa, who thinks he can avoid death if she would be too ugly to get a husband. Immediately after the birth Vasudeva and Baladeva interchange the baby boy with the daughter of the herdsman Nanda. The birth of the seventh child is announced by seven dreams, the standard narrative theme in the conception of a future Vāsudeva or Ardhacakravartin. After a short doctrinal discourse, including the previous birth stories of the future Tīrthankara Nemi, Devakī’s first six children are exchanged by the god Naigama for stillborns (34–35). One day Jīvadyaśas insults the ascetic Atimuktaka, who curses her, swearing that her husband and father will die at the hand of Devakī’s seventh son. He gives the hand of his sister Devakī to Vasudeva. Hearing the story of his parentage Kamsa takes control of Mathurā and imprisons his father. Together with Vasudeva he overthrows Simharatha for Jarāsandha, thus winning the hand of Jarāsandha’s daughter, Jīvadyaśas. Sarga 33 introduces Kamsa, the son of Ugrasena who had been abandoned at birth and grew up in the home of Vasudeva. With Vasudeva’s return and marriage to Rohinī and the birth of Baladeva, we revert to the more traditional epic material (31–32). From sarga 19 onwards, twelve chapters are devoted to his adventures, the Vasudevahindi. The youngest of the Daśārhas, the handsome Vasudeva, leaves the palace to roam the world for one hundred years.
Andhakavrishni renounces the world after which his eldest son Samudravijaya becomes king. The eighteenth sarga presents King Yadu in the Hari dynasty giving rise to the Yādava branch in Mathurā and introduces some of the characters known from their equivalents in the Mahabharata: Andhakavrishni and his ten sons (Daśārhas) and two daughters, Kuntī and Mādrī, Bhojakavrishni and his sons Ugrasena, Mahāsena and Devasena, and Jarāsandha, the king of Rājagriha. Jinasena then briefly describes several generations of kings in the Hari dynasty, listing some of their extraordinary feats (16–17). In sarga 13 the Harivamśapurāna proper begins, with a sketch of history up to the tenth Jina, Śītalanātha, during whose time the Hari dynasty arises.Īccording to the Harivamśapurāna the harivamśa is named after a king, Hari, the first king of Campā, son of a Vidyādhara couple (14–15). This is followed by the stories of Bharata and Bāhubali, two sons of Rishabha, and founders of the Solar and the Lunar dynasty (11–12) respectively. He is also the founder of the ikshvākuvamśa, and further, upon his cousins, Nami and Vinami, he bestows vidyās, magical powers, and the land to establish their own dynasty, the vidyādharavamśa (8–10). The last Kulakara fathers the first Jina, Rishabha, who continues the work of the Kulakaras, giving rise to the basic social and hierarchical structures, and installing professions and castes. Indrabhūti Gautama, the head of Mahāvīra’s assembly, commences with an exposition of cosmology, chronology, and the rise of the Kulakaras (4–7). True to the systematic requirements of a Jaina Purana, the first three chapters describe the narrative setting of Mahāvīra’s samavasarana, where Shrenika enquires about the story of the Hari dynasty upon seeing Jitashatru, a monk of the Hari lineage, attaining kevalajñāna. They consist of four larger parts: (1) Harivamśa, including the story of Krishna, his ancestors and progeny (2) Nemicarita, the biography of the 22nd Tīrthankara, Krishna’s cousin (3) Pāndavacarita, containing the central narrative of the Mahabharata and (4) Vasudevahindi, the narrative of the wanderings of Krishna’s father Vasudeva, in reality being a Jaina version of the Brhatkathā in which the character of Prince Naravāhanadatta is replaced by Vasudeva.
the story of Krishna and his relatives, or Mahabharata material. In general, all Jaina Harivamśa narratives go far beyond what one might consider to be fitting for the Harivamśa, i.e.