Treasury of Jain Tales

SR No.: 006762
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: V M Kulkarni
Publisher: Shardaben Chimanbhai Educational Research Centre
Publication Year: 1994
Total Pages: 468
Language: English
Classification: Book_English
File Size: 17 MB

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mendicant promised him much precious wealth if only he agreed to follow him. Agaladatta remarked that he indeed was kind to him.
When the sun set, and it started becoming dark, the mendicant pulled out a sword out of one of the three staffs that he was carrying, girded up his loins and asked Agaladatta to follow him to the city. Agaladatta had his own suspicions and he decided to observe every movement of the man most carefully. He had made up his mind that the man was the thief that he must catch. They entered the city where on one of the houses which looked rich enough, the mendicant fixed his eyes. He made a breach in its wall in the form of Srivatsa. He went in and soon enough came out with b full of all sorts of things. Agaladatta looked at them and decided to follow things to the end. When the religious mendicant had finished his robbery, he asked Agaladatta to remain there only to take care of the stolen property. He went to a nearby temple and brought with him a few poor men whom he had kept there. He asked these men to carry the baskets quickly out of the city to an old park. Agaladatta accompanied the party. The mendicant then proposed that they should sleep for a little while in that park. The men that had carried the baskets quickly fell asleep. The mendicant however pretended to be asleep and so did Agaladatta. After a while. Agaiadatta quietly slipped away and hid behind a tree. The mendicant got up and quickly killed all the men that he had employed to carry the baskets. He also looked at Agaladatta's bed and when he did not see him there, he began to search for him. He came very close to the place where Agaladatta was hiding himself and Agaladatta quickly struck him on his shoulder with his sword. The mendicant fell to the ground badly wounded. Nevertheless, he said to Agaladatta, "Child, take this sword. Go to the place behind the cemetery. Knock on the wall of the temple there. There my sister lives in an underground dwelling. Show her the sword, and she will become your wife and you will be the lord of all the riches there. I for my part am sorely wounded and my life has come to an end."
Agaladatta took the sword with him and when he knocked on the side of the wall of the said temple, the mendicant's sister came to meet him. She looked so beautiful that Agaladatta thought that