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

Page 231

174
your foot up out of sheer kindness for two full days and two nights and half a day more. You thus earned great deal of merit for yourself. Though animals have no occasion to understand religion, you showed remarkable tolerance and kindness. Therefore, you are now born in a noble family. As a human being, you understand religion, out of that understanding you have renounced the world. You are young and energetic and yet, alas ! you cannot even tolerate the touch of the feet of monks when they inadvertently trip over you in the night, the monks who happen to be senior to you and even fit to be your teachers."
Tears of repentance kept on rolling down the cheeks of Meghakumāra as he listened to the account of his earlier lives. He attained jātismarana knowledge and remembered whatever Mahävira had described. Humbly he bowed to him and said how sorry he now felt to see the way his mind had strayed from the right path. The Master's words opened his eyes and his ego disappeared. He assured the Master that his entire body except his two eyes would remain in the service of the monks hereafter. The Master should kindly accept him back in the fold as his disciple.
After this Meghakumāra lived the life of a monk and practised for twelve long years severe penances. His body was a mere skeleton but from his face divine glow and lustre never faded. Once when he was observing a month long fast, his soul left the body.
Mahāvira was once asked by Gautama, another of his disciples, regarding the whereabouts of Meghakumāra after his soul had left the body. Mahavira said that he was now born in Vijaya Mahavimâna Devaloka and he would live there for thirty three sägaropamas and when asked where he would go after that stay in Devaloka, the great Master replied that he would then be in Mahavideha-Varsa where he would attain ultimate knowledge and bring to an end all the miseries of life.