Unknown Pilgrims

SR No.: 007014
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: N Shanta
Publisher: Sri Satguru Publications Delhi
Publication Year: 1997
Total Pages: 820
Language: English
Classification: Book_English
File Size: 19 MB

Page 121

Prelude
101
intermediate tirthankaras, but no outstanding fact is related in their regard.
Malli, according to Svetāmbara tradition, was a princess, the daughter of King Kumbha af Mithilä, in the kingdom of Videha.24 Her story reveals her strength of character and her ingenuity. She was of outstanding beauty and the tale goes that six princes of neighbouring kingdoms requested her hand in marriage from her father. Her father, in accordance with her wishes, refused and the six suitors declared war against him. When King Kumbha told Malli that these princes had attacked Mithilā and that he could by no means repel them, she told him not to be anxious and disclosed to him her own plan to vanquish them. He must send an emissary to cach of them with this message: "I give you the hand of the princess of the kingdom of Videha", requesting them also to repair at night to the palace garden. And so it came to pass. Several days later each of the princes entered Mithilă by a different door, none knowing the presence of the others, and was received and given lodgement in a room of the mohanaghara which opened upon the garden.25 Meanwhile, Malli had had erected in the centre of the mohanaghara a superb golden status of her own size and likeness. The head of this statue had an opening carved into it, sealed with a cover and decorated with lotus-flowers. The statue was hollow and through the opening Malli had stuffed it with foodstuffs. The next morning, each of the princes went into ecstacies on perceiving the statue from afar through the trellis-windown of his room. Believing that it was the princess and overcome by the charm and grace of this apparition, they all gazed upon it with lustful eyes. During this time Malli was taking her bath and then, adorned with her jewels and accompanied by her maidservants, she repaired to the lotus-covered statue and removed the lotus-wreathed cover. Immediately a nauseating stench like that of a
24 In the Digambara tradition, the 19th tirtharikara is a man.
25 Cf. Winternitz, 1977, p. 447, n. 3: "A mohanaghara: "a house intended for confusion," namely, a house in which a second house, and in the latter a third house stands, with net-work walls, so that the princes could be led into the house, without knowing of one another, and yet could all see the same figure."