Life and Stories of Jaina Savior Parcvanatha

SR No.: 011028
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: Maurice Bloomfield
Publisher: Maurice Bloomfield
Publication Year: 1919
Total Pages: 271
Language: English
Classification: Book_English, N000, & N040
File Size: 20 MB

Page 150

136 Life and Stories of Pārçvanātha in the guise of a Brahman, and said: King, show compassion to living creatures. This city, without you, laments for its ruler.' The hermit answered: Mankind receive the fruit of their own individual actions; so I attend to my own business.' The Brahman next said: • The city of Mithilā is in flames.' The hermit answered: * In the burning of the city of Mithilā nothing of mine burns.' The Brahman said: 'Set up a rampart round the city. The hermit said: 'Round the city of selfcontrol I have set up the rampart of soul peace, and mounted on it the engine of prudence.' Indra tried still other lures, but, when the Sage remained firm in his resolve, he praised and circumambulated him thrice to the right,45 and flew up to heaven. The Sage attained to bliss, and his mother Madanarekhā reached the state of purity (773-998).
Story of the Cakravartin Sanatkumāra.48 Pārçva then turns to the exposition of the third item of the dharma, namely tapas, asceticism,' illustrating by the story of the Emperor Sanatkumāra: In the land of Bharata, in the district of the Kurus, in the city of Hastināgapura, ruled king Acvasena, together with his beloved queen Sahadevī. A prince, Sanatkumāra, endowed with all good characteristics, was born to them, after he had been announced to his mother by the four
* See note 41, on p. 133.
"A Prakrit version, in Jacobi, Ausgewählte Erzählungen in Maharastri, pp. 20 ff.; a Sanskrit version in Kathākoga, pp. 31 ff.; and in Laksmivallabha's commentary on the Uttarădhyayana-Sūtra, pp. 522 ff. This story is told by itself, as 'Sanatcumăra Cadha,' digested in Taylor's Catalogue Raisonné, vol. iii, p. 248 ff. Of. Stevenson, Heart of Jainism, p. 159. A different story of Sanatkumāra's Cakravartinship is told in Samarddityasamiksepa 5. 28 f.