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

Page 56

2. SYNOPSIS OF YASASTILAKA
Book V
The ascetic boy describes the rebirths of Yasodhara and his mother Candramati after their tragic death.
a) Yasodhara was reborn in a family of peacocks inhabiting a large tree in a well-watered valley to the north-east of the Suvela mountain. There he was caught by a hunter and presented to Yasomati, who had ascended the throne after Yasodhara's death. The peacock miraculously remembered the events of his former birth, and recognised the old scenes and associates as soon as he entered the city of Ujjayini and saw the royal palace:
सैवेयं नगरी तदेव भवनं ता एव केलीधराः संवैषा वनभूः स एव सरसीसारे विलासाचलः ।
सैवासौ वनिता स एव तनयस्ते चैव मे बान्धवाश्रित्रं केवलमेक एव हि कथं जातोऽहमन्याकृतिः ॥ Meanwhile, Candramati was reborn as a dog in a cowherd settlement in Karahața, a country lying to the south of the Vindhya mountain. It so happened that the dog was also presented by the owner to the king, who was glad to receive so fine an animal for his hunting excursions.
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One day the peacock wandered to the seventh floor of the royal palace, and discovered Amṛtamati dallying with her paramour, the cripple. The peacock became mad with rage and attacked the pair with his beak, wings and throat. The serving maids saw this, and raising a hue and cry, struck the bird with whatever they found ready to hand, caskets, canes, fans and shoes. The dog, too, came and rushed upon the bird and killed him. The king, who was playing a game of dice nearby, saw the dog attacking the peacock, and dealt a blow at the animal with the board, killing him outright.
b) In the next birth Yasodhara became a stag and Candramati a serpent. On the very day of his birth, the former developed a taste for snake's flesh, and discovered the serpent while digging up ant-hills with his horns. He at once started to devour the reptile, but the hoarse sound emanating from his throat, gorged with snake's flesh, awakened a hyena asleep in a neighbouring grove of Kadamba trees, and the stag in his turn became the hyena's prey.
c) Yasodhara was then reborn as a huge fish and Candramati as a crocodile in the Sipra. One day, during the water-sports of the women of Ujjayini in the river, a maid of the royal household was seized by the crocodile, and Yasomati, in anger, ordered the fishermen to destroy all dangerous animals in the river. They at once got into all kinds of fishing craft; and in the course of the operation, the crocodile was pierced in the throat by a spear, and the fish, too, caught in a net. Both of them