Trishasti Shalaka Purusa Caritra Part 4

SR No.: 001004
Original Sutra Author: Hemchandracharya
Author: Helen M Johnson
Publisher: Oriental Research Institute Vadodra
Publication Year: 1954
Total Pages: 449
Language: English
Classification: Book_English, Mythology, & Story
File Size: 9 MB

Page 78

SUBHUMACAKRAVARTĪCARITRA
43
the truth, they went to test Jamadagni, the most distinguished of the ascetics. They saw him with the ground touched by his spreading matted hair like a banyan-tree, the extremities of his feet covered with ants, subdued. The two gods made by magic a nest in the mass of creepers of his beard at once, assumed the form of a pair of sparrows, and stayed. The cock said to the hen, "I am going to Mt. Himavat." She scorned him, saying, "You will not come back, devoted to another." "If I do not come back, wife, I am guilty of the sin of a cow-killer." The hen said again to the cock who had made this promise, "If you would swear with the words, I am guilty of the sin of this sage,' I would let you go there, husband. May your journey be happy."
Hearing this speech, Jamadagni was angered and seized the two birds with his hands. Then he said, "What kind of sin, like darkness in the sun, is in me performing difficult penance ?
""
Then the cock-sparrow said to the sage: "Do not be angry. Your penance is useless. Have you not heard the sacred saying that there is no progress of the soul of a sonless man?" Thinking, "That is true," the muni reflected, "My penance is strung in water since I have no wife nor
son.'
""
Seeing him disturbed, thinking, "I have been deceived by the ascetics," Dhanvantari became a (Jain) layman. Who is not convinced by proof? Then the two gods became invisible, and Jamadagni went to the city Nemikakoṣṭaka. Wishing to win a girl, like Hara Gauri, he went to King Jitaśatru who had many daughters. The king rose to greet him and, his hands folded, asked, "Why have you come? Tell what can I do?"
The muni said, "I have come for a girl," and the king said, "Take the one who is willing from a hundred girls." He went to the maidens' quarters and said to the king's daughters, "Some one of you be my wife." They made a spitting noise and said, "Are you not ashamed to say this,