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Appendix - Notes
King Shrenik
He was the emperor of the Magadha country. He became a devout follower of Lord Mahavira after being enlightened by Anathi Muni. This is a popular belief.
The description of King Shrenik is found in abundance in Jain scriptures and Buddhist scriptures.
Historians say that King Shrenik belonged to the Haihaya clan and the Shishunaga dynasty.
In Buddhist scriptures, two names are found: 'Seniya' and 'Bimbisara'. In Jain scriptures, the names Seniya, Bhimbhasara and Bhambhasara are available.
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How did the names Bhansar and Bhambhasara come about? There is a beautiful incident in Shrenik's life in this regard - Shrenik's father, King Prasenajit, ruled in Kushagara. One day, a fire suddenly broke out in the royal palace. Every prince ran out with his favorite thing. Some took elephants, some took horses, some took jewels. But Shrenik only took a 'bhambha' outside.
Seeing Shrenik, the other brothers were laughing, but father Prasenajit was happy, because Shrenik had left everything else and protected only the symbol of the kingdom.
On this, King Prasenajit named him 'Bhimbhasara', or 'Bhambhasara'. The word Bhimbhasara probably later became Bimbisara due to pronunciation differences.
Dharini Devi
She was the queen of King Shrenik. Dharini is mentioned in abundance in the Agamas.
In the plays of Sanskrit literature, the name of the king's eldest queen is often preceded by the epithet 'Devi', which means - the greatest anointed queen among the queens, that is, the queen consort.
King Shrenik had many queens, among them Dharini was the main one. That is why the epithet 'Devi' is used before Dharini. Devi means - worshipable.
Meghakumar was the son of this Dharini Devi, who took initiation from Lord Mahavira. Lion Dream
When a great man is born in the womb, his mother sees a great dream. This kind of description is full of Indian literature. There are abundant descriptions of this kind in Jain literature and Buddhist literature.
Maya Devi, the mother of Buddha, saw a silver elephant with six tusks when Buddha was born in her womb.
The mother of a Tirthankara and a Chakravarti sees 14 great dreams. The mother of Vasudeva sees any seven of the fourteen dreams. The mother of Baldev sees four dreams. Similarly, the mother of a Mandalik king sees one great dream.
The dream of a lion is considered to be a sign of bravery and auspicious.
Meghakumar
He was the son of Magadha emperor Shrenik and Dharini Devi, who took initiation from Lord Mahavira.