Devalok
How a tradition frames it · 2 tellings · Pan-India, West India

Rama the monk and Krishna the cousin

Jain tellings keep Rama and Krishna as great men in a fixed roster of sixty-three: Lakshmana kills Ravana, Rama becomes a monk, and Krishna is Neminatha's cousin.

Who is in it

  • Rama eighth Baladeva, who renounces
  • Lakshmana eighth Vasudeva, who kills Ravana
  • Ravana eighth Prativasudeva
  • Krishna Vasudeva and Ardhachakravartin, cousin of Neminatha
  • Neminatha the twenty-second Tirthankara

Texts: Paumachariya, Harivamsa Purana (Jinasena)

The story, beat by beat

  1. Vimalasuri's Paumachariya places Rama, Lakshmana and Ravana in the Jain roster of sixty-three illustrious persons.
  2. Rama has conquered his passions, so it is Lakshmana who kills Ravana.
  3. Rama renounces the world, becomes a Jain monk and reaches liberation.
  4. Jinasena's Harivamsa Purana of 783 CE centres on the Tirthankara Neminatha.
  5. Krishna is Neminatha's cousin, a Vasudeva who kills Jarasandha and rules as an Ardhachakravartin.
  6. Draupadi in this telling is married only to Arjuna.

non violence monk roster of 63 human hero

How it is told, place by place

Base telling · Encyclopedia

Jain Puranas (Vimalasuri; Jinasena)

West India · Gujarat and Karnataka Jain communities Jain Jain

Jain literature keeps the epic characters and takes away their divinity. In Vimalasuri's Paumachariya, the earliest Jain Ramayana, Rama is the eighth Baladeva, Lakshmana the eighth Vasudeva and Ravana the eighth Prativasudeva in the roster of sixty-three great persons that Jain cosmology repeats in every age. Because Rama has already mastered his passions he cannot be the one who kills, so Lakshmana slays Ravana; Rama goes on to take the monk's vows and win liberation. Jinasena's Sanskrit Harivamsa Purana of 783 CE does the same for Krishna, who is the cousin of the Tirthankara Neminatha, kills Jarasandha as a Vasudeva must, rules half the world as an Ardhachakravartin, and is a man of destiny rather than a god; Draupadi here has one husband, Arjuna.

Rama in Jainism — Wikipedia; Vimalsuri — Wikipedia; Paumacariya: a critical study unverified; Harivamsa Purana — Wikipedia

Primary text (translation)

Valmiki and the Bhagavata

Pan-India Vaishnava

In the Hindu epics Rama kills Ravana himself and is Vishnu incarnate; Krishna is Vishnu in full and the teacher of the Gita.

What is different here:

The Jain texts move the killing to Lakshmana, end Rama's life in monkhood, and make Krishna a Tirthankara's cousin; the avatar idea is absent throughout.

The Ramayana of Valmiki (verse); Srimad Bhagavatam (Bhagavata Purana)

Sources: Rama in Jainism — Wikipedia; Vimalsuri — Wikipedia; Paumacariya: a critical study; Harivamsa Purana — Wikipedia; The Ramayana of Valmiki (verse); Srimad Bhagavatam (Bhagavata Purana)

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