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JAINA LITERATURE IN TAMIL
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grew weary of worldly riches and was trying to discard the kingly pleasures and renounce the world. Just then he had an ominous dream in which the moon from the high skies was observed to fall down towards the earth losing all her light and glory. The king feared that this was symbolic of some calamity and wanted to know how to avoid the evil foretold in this dream. The queen-mother was consulted by the king who was advised to offer some animal sacrifice to Kāli for the purpose of warding off such a calamity. The king, because he was a faithful follower of ahimsadharma, could not reconcile himself to animal sacrifice. Hence the king and his queen-mother both arrived at a compromise according to which the king had to offer a fowl made of rice-flour as a sacrifice to Kāli. So the mock-fowl was offered as a sacrifice to Kāli. Thus troubles began. In the meanwhile, the queen, knowing that her conduct was discovered by the king and the queen-mother, hated them both and finally succeeded in killing them by poisoning them. Thus, after disposing off the king and his mother, this wicked queen Amṛtamati made her own son Yaśōmati the king of Avanti-deśa. After the death of Yasodhara and his queen-mother Candramati as a result of the sin of sacrificing to Kāli, they were born as lower animals for seven births in succession.
The third section is the description of the various janmas taken by the king Yasodhara and his mother as lower animals and birds, and the grief and suffering that they had to undergo.
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