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 273

38. THE STORY OF AÑJU
Añjusri was the daughter of Dhanadeva and his wife Priyangu. One day king Vijaya saw her and asked her parent's permission to marry her. The young couple enjoyed many pleasures in their lofty palace but soon enough it was discovered that the queen had a painful disease of the womb. The king tried various physicians but they could give her no relief whatever. The king made an announcement and several physicians from far and wide came to treat the queen but they all failed and the pain went on increasing and the queen's suffering would not end.
Gautama, who saw the queen in this miserable condition asked Mahāvira about the cause of her suffering. Mahāvira explained that the cause was to be sought in the karmas of her earlier life time. She was a courtesan named Prthvi sri, an extremely accomplished young woman who had succeeded in bringing under her spell many princes and rich men in the city of Indrapura. She employed a variety of medicinal powders on her patrons and extracted a lot of money from them all. After a long span of life she died and was sent into the sixth region of hell. When she came out of there she was born in the same city of Vardhamanapura as the daughter of Priynigu the wife of Dhanadeva, and her name was Añjusti who was the same person that Gautama had seen in her agonising pain and miserable condition. After her death, she would go to Ratnaprabhā as a hell-being and afterwards she would go through a series of transmigrations and be born in a family of merchants in the city of Sarvatobhadra but as a male child. During the course of education, she would meet a worthy monk with whose help she