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carelessness. "Fie upon me! What a sinful wretch am I of miserable nature: I am as undesirable and disagreeable as a Nimba fruit. I have dressed this juicy gourd, prepared it with so much of care adding plenty of spices and ghee, all to be wasted like this! My sisters-in-law will surely censure me if only they come to know of this preparation." So before the two other women arrived, she concealed the gourd preparation in a secret place and quickly prepared another sweet dish, with similar quantity of spices and ghee. The Brahmin brothers and their wives ate to their satisfaction and went back to their own residences. Nāgasri was happy that her gourd preparation was not discovered by any one. Nevertheless, she was worried about how to get rid of that juicy but bitter preparation.
At that time the most respectable monk Dharmaghosa with a large entourage of his disciples, had camped in the Subhūmibhāga Park, which was situated on the north eastern side of the city. Every day Dharmaghosa and another equally learned monk called Dharmaruci held discourses to which a large number of people from the city came. The two great monks occasionally observed fasts. Once Dharmaruci completed his month long fast and on the day he was to break it, he did his usual religious rituals in the early part of it and asked Dharmaghosa's permission to go out for alms in the latter part of the day. According to the law he would visit high, low and middling houses in the city and not confine himself only to the houses of the rich and high. Accordingly he came to the house of Brahmani Nāgasri. Nagasri was quick to decide that the monk Dharmaruci was the right recipient of the bitter gourd preparation that she had kept aside. So when the monk came to her with his begging bowl, she poured the whole of it into his bowl. Dharmaruci thought that that much food was more than sufficient for the day, 'did not visit any other house and quickly went back to the park. He showed his alms to Dharmaghosa who inspected it carefully. He felt overpowered by the smell of the ghee and all other spices that were put in it. So he took a drop of it on the palm of his hand and tasted it. He realised that it was not fit for eating. It had become
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| SR No. | 006762 |
| Book Title | Treasury of Jain Tales |
| 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 |