Yasastilaka and Indian Culture

SR No.: 001609
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: Krishnakant Handiqui
Publisher: Jain Sanskruti Samrakshak Sangh Solapur
Publication Year: 1968
Total Pages: 566
Language: English
Classification: Book_English, Story, Literature, & Culture
File Size: 16 MB

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YASASTILAKA AND INDIAN CULTURE
mouth of the Jaina sage Sudatta. The delineation of the horrid scene is followed by the thoughts provoked by the sight of the decomposing corpse of a young woman, and specially by the contrast between beauty and present condition. The decaying body is described limb by limb; and while the description of the scene of desolation shows graphic power, that of the dead woman is overdone, and lapses into wearisome details, although there are some beautiful verses which recount her former charms, Some of the verses in which the cremation-ground is described are cited below:
अर्धदग्धशवलेशलालसैर्भण्डनोद्भटरटद्गलान्तरैः । कालकेलिकरकौतुकोद्यतैर्विश्वकढुभिरुपद्रुतान्तरम् ॥
श्येनकुलं घूककुलं द्रोणकुलं श्वकुलभण्डनाद्रीतम् । शवपिशितप्राशवशादिवि भुवि च समाकुलं पुरतः॥ The place is overrun by dogs eager to devour the fragments of half-burnt bodies. They are busy fighting and loudly bark and indulge in a pastime delightful to the god of death. And in the foreground, flocks of hawks, owls and ravens, scared away by the fighting of the dogs, throng in disorder on the earth and in the sky in the hope of feeding on the flesh of the corpses (1. 13-4).
गृध्राघ्रातसमांसकीकसरसस्रावोत्पथाः पादपाः प्रेतोपान्तपतत्पतन्त्रिपरुषप्रायाः प्रदेशा दिशः।
ga Tautas*93ztufese: ta: daga frutat xafaat: 11 The trees are polluted by the oozings from the fleshy bones swallowed by the vultures, and tho topmost branches are blown away by violent gales. The environs are made repulsive by the birds flocking round the dead, and on every side spreads the smoke of funeral pyres, resembling in colour age-worn doves (1, 85).
___ कालाग्निरुद्रनिटिलेक्षणदुर्निरीक्षाः कीनाशहोमहुतवाहविरुक्षवीक्षाः ।
दाहगवच्छववपुःस्फुटदस्थिमध्यप्रारब्धशब्दकठिना दहनाश्चितानाम् ॥ The flames of the funeral pyres are hard to look at, like the eye on Siva's forehead at the time of the universal fire of destruction, and present a gruesome sight, like a ceremonial fire in which oblations are offered to the god of death. They are harshly loud with the sound produced within the cracking bones of the dead bodies dissolved by the fire (1. 86).
भ्रश्यच्छरीरशवशीर्णशिरोजसारः कुथ्यस्कलेवरकरङ्कहतप्रचारः।
दग्धार्धदेहमृतकाग्निमयप्रबन्धो वातः करोति ककुभोऽशुभगन्धबन्धाः ॥ The wind fills the regions of the sky with a noxious smell. It is laden with the falling hair of decomposing dead bodies, and checked in its onrush by the skeletons of putrid corpses, and fans the flames clinging to the halfburnt bodies of the dead (1. 88).
1
A brief description of a cremation-ground occurs in Kşemeśvara's Candakausika Act IV.