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STUDIES IN JAINISM
Vimalasuri thus describes him: "Body, dark brown like a shining.emerald, face beautiful like a full-blown lotus, large and expansive chest, powerful and long arms, waist so slender as to be taken in a grip, hips like those of a lion. thighs like the trunk of an elephant, feet elegant like those of a tortoise, possessing the thirty two auspicious marks, adorned by the Śrīvatsa jewel and dress of a nice finishthis Rāvana appeared to the men of the world like the great god Indra."18 Surely this transformation is rather enviable. All his superfluous heads and arms vanish with their weirdness leaving behind the human form.
Not only did Rāvana come to possess human form but a large share of the human heart also under the magic touch of Vimalasüri. His heart becomes the seat of tender and noble emotions. There are numerous incidents scattered through the Paumacaria wherein the heart of Rāvana is revealed. One or two of such incidents can be noticed here. Once, in his campaign for conquering the three worlds, he defeated Varuņa and took him prisoner. The subjects of Varuna, overcome by grief, were crying sorely. Rāvana heard their lament and pacified them by kindly restoring to Varuna his liberty and kngdom. 19 On the last day of his life, when death and disgrace were hanging heavily upon his aggrieved soul, he repents as nobody has repented since then, either in poetry or in actual life, for the wrong that he did to Sitā in separating her by stealth from her beloved husband and the misery he inflicted upon her. He hates himself; he cries, out of pity for poor Sītā, like a lonely child bereaved of its mother.20 Vimalasūri succeeds in convincing us, poetically, that Ravana's nature was more human than that of the noblest of men.
18
PC., XI, 105-108. It is true that the Jainas call Rāvana by the name of Daśamukha also. But this does not indicate that he had actually ten heads. When he was born his face was reflected in a decagonal ruby and the child Rāvana appeared as if he had ten heads. The ruby was a heir-loom in his family.
19 PC., XIX, 31-32.
20 Ibid., L.XIX, 29-39
| SR No. | 006565 |
| Book Title | Studies in Jainism |
| Original Sutra Author | N/A |
| Author | Ramkrishna Mission Institute of Culture Culcutta |
| Publisher | Ramkrishna Mission Institute of Culture Culcutta |
| Publication Year | 1997 |
| Total Pages | 182 |
| Language | English |
| Classification | Book_English |
| File Size | 11 MB |