Kuvalayamala, a prakrit Jain novel of ancient India has been translated into English and published by Sapna Bookhouse. It is in two big volumes. Similar to many Jain stories and long novels this also has a combination of love, romance, adventure and admonitions along with many short stories interwoven. Some other Jain stories of this sort are Samaradityakatha, Tarangavatikatha, Champakashreshthikatha, Vasudevahindee etc. which are not available easily and some being totally lost. All these stories took form after Brihatkatha, or the big story collection of Gunadhya in a prakrit language called paishachi. Though this is not extant, it's Sanskrit equivalents, Kathasaritsagara of Somadeva, Brihatkathamanjari of Kshemendra and Brihatkathashlokasangraha of Budhaswamin are present. All these contain wonderful stories which can be used to produce many many films like Bahubali. After this, Panchatantra of Vishnusharma, Hitopadesha of Narayana, Vetalapanchavimshati of Shivadasa and Jambhaladatta, Shukasaptati of Chintamanibhatta, Purushapareeksha of Vidyapati, Bhojaprabandha of Ballalasena, Simhasanadwatrimshika of different authors, Jatakamala of Aryashura and many other story collections came in Sanskrit. Big novels like Banabhatta's Kadambari, Dandi's Dashakumaracharita, Soddhala's Udayasundarikatha, Dhanapala's Tilakamanjarikatha etc. are wonderful stories in Sanskrit. Similar to these, Jains too wrote large collections of stories in Sanskrit, Prakrit, Apabhramsha, Kannada, Gujarati etc. Harishena's Birihatkathakosha, Merutunga's Prabandhachintamani, Rajashekhara's Prabandhakosha, Bharatakadwatrimshika of unknown author, Dhurtakhyana of Haribhadrasuri, Dharmapareeksha of Amitagati, Trishashtishalakacharita and Parishishtaparva of Hemachandra, and many books called Kathakoshas by various authors in Sanskrit and Prakrit, Vaddaradhane of Bhrajishnu and Dharmamrita of Nayasena in Kannada, Long novels like the present one, and Vasudevahindee of Sanghadasagani, a Jain version of Brihatkatha are some examples. Jains also have Mahapurana, by Jinasenacharya.Similarly Buddhists have Jataka stories said to be of Buddha's previous births, a huge collection of 545 stories and Dhammapada attha katha in Pali, Avadanakalpalata of Kshemendra,Jatakamala of Aryashura, Divyavadana, a set of 38 long stories in Sanskrit. All these being more of folk and moral stories coupled with Vedic stories, more of Dharmic genre, of Vedas, Upanishads, Ramayana, Mahabharata, the 18 Puranas and 18 Upapuranas form an extremely huge collection of traditional Indian stories! This, along with folk tales from individual states and languages, temple legends, pilgrimage and river legends along with historical legends form a highly rich collection! Many of our stories especially the Jain and Buddhist influenced western fairy tales and Arabian nights.
