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Prabhāvati was extremely beautiful and they both enjoyed all kinds of pleasures. One night the queen saw a curious dream generally called a simhasvapna -- a lion dream. So called because it is about a lion. As the queen was sleeping in her most comfortable bed, around the middle of the night, she saw an enormously big lion, well built, good looking, silver white in complexion with jaws wide open, eyes blood red, descending from the sky and entering into her mouth. The queen was completely awake but not frightened in the least. On the other hand she was extremely happy. She was eager to narrate the whole dream to her husband, her impatience would not allow her to wait till the morning. Therefore she rushed into his bed room and awakened him. The king kept on looking at her with great curiosity and asked her the purpose of her visit at that odd hour of the night. She told him of the dream which strangely enough filled her with a great feeling of satisfaction, and asked him whether he could fathom the meaning of such a dream. The kina thought for a while and said to his queen that as he understood it, the queen would beget a son, the gem of the royal family, exactly after nine months and seven-and-a-half days. However the king said he would consult the royal priest for the right interpretation of the dream. But even with the king's explanation the queen's joy knew no bounds and she kept awake all through the night so that the dream she had seen should not be disturbed. She remembered various auspicious stories about gods and saints for the rest of the night.
In the morning the king sent for the priest and asked him to interpret the queen's dream. The scientific explanation according to the priest was that the child that was going to be born was destined to be either a great king or a monk. The dream that the queen had seen was one of the fourteen dreams that prophesy great events in the life of the child to be born. Exactly after nine months and seven-and-a-half days the queen gave birth to a son bearing the lustre of full moon. The king expressed his great joy by distributing all the ornaments that he had on his person except his crown to all the servants that had attended the queen during her labour and brought him the good news. The whole capital celebrated the birth of the child on a grand scale. The king ordered
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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 |