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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flowers, garlands, carpets and such other decorative material. The queen mothers also had tastefully decked themselves up. After they had eaten well, and sipped a variety of wines, they fell deeply asleep. The king was waiting for this hour and he asked his servants to close all the doors of the palace. Then he set fire to the whole palace in which all the queen mothers were scorched to death.
As a result of this terrible sin, the king was despatched to the sixth region of hell as a hell-being after his death. After his long spell of twenty two sagaropamas in hell was over, he was sent into this world as a human being. He was born in the city of Rohitaka in the family of the merchant Datta but this time as a daughter. Her parents gave her the name of Devadattā. She grew up to be a young woman exquisite in beauty and excellent in form. Once after her bath, she was playing on the terrace of her house when king Vaisramana saw her. He was tremendously impressed by her beauty and lively and playful movements. He quickly sent through his servant a proposal to the merchant Datta for the hand of his daughter for his son, the crown prince Pusyanandi. The father was greatly pleased and conveyed to the king his consent and accordingly the marriage took place.
The prince and princess lived for a long time leading a very carefree and happy life till one of these days the king died and Pusyanandi showed how tremendously he was attached to his mother Śri. Every morning, he visited her, fell at her feet, applied a variety of oils to her body, massaged it with innumerable medicinal herbs, then bathed her in hot and scented water and served her breakfast. Only then he would think of his own bath and breakfast. This sort of devotion to the widowed mother very much annoyed his wife Devadatta. She nearly lost her sleep and almost all the time her mind was occupied with a variety of plans that she kept on making to get rid of the mother-in-law. One day she felt so terribly frenzied that she picked up an iron bar, took it to the kitchen and heated it redhot and thrust it in the anus of Sri as she was sleeping. The old woman shrieked out but met with immediate death. At the sound of the cry of Sri many servants rushed to the room and they clearly saw queen Devadattā running out of that room. When they