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benefit us? We are enslaved by this wicked demon-like husband for his sensual enjoyments, but we are never at liberty to amuse ourselves freely as we like. Let us, therefore, enjoy some momentary happiness during the period that he has gone out of the house after a very long time." With this idea in their mind, all of them had a bath; they anointed their bodies with a fragrant paste; put on excellent clothes; wore various ornaments; made a tilaka on their fore-heads; applied red pigment to the central portion of their head created by equally separating their hair; dressed their cheeks with an ointment of musk inixed with other perfumes, and they coloured their lips by chewing betel-leaves mixed with chunam and catechu. When all these females, welldressed and with their bodies decorated with precious ornamanents, were individually looking into a mirror, their husband hurriedly returned home. Angered at seeing such strange pranks of these females, he punished one of his wives so severely that she died immediately. The bodies of the rest of the females began to quiver with fear, and all of them thought:-This wicked man will some-day kill all of us, as he did this poor girl. Let us, therefore, kill him with our looking-glasses. What is the use of keeping him alive? With these words, they simultaneously threw all their mirrors towards him.
Accurately hit by the mirrors of his four hundred and ninetynine wives, the gold-smith died immediately. The females repentingly thought:-Ah! We have killed our husband. What will now, be our state ! People will blame us; the king will punish us; our relatives will shun us; and wicked persons will harass us It is, therefore, appropriate that all of us should .die." Thinking thus, they closed all the doors of the house, collected together fuel, dry-grass, and chaff; set fire to the accumulated mass and all of them entered the blazing fire, and died simultaneously. Associated collectively by repentence and compassion, all the four hundred and ninety-nine females, having died without any desire of worldly gains, were born as so many male human beings. Being Corn under the influence of similar circumstances and
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| SR No. | 008003 |
| Book Title | Shraman Bhagvana Mahavira Part 2 Vibhag 2 |
| Original Sutra Author | N/A |
| Author | Ratnaprabhvijay, D P Thaker |
| Publisher | Parimal Publication |
| Publication Year | 1989 |
| Total Pages | 802 |
| Language | English, Sanskrit |
| Classification | Book_English, Biography, History, & Religion |
| File Size | 20 MB |