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54 MAHĀVIRA'S PREDECESSORS and the interval of time between him and his predecessor
was nine crores of sāgara. 11. Śre- King Vişnudeva, who ruled in Simhapuri, possessed yāmsa.
a most beautiful throne, but unfortunately an evil spirit nātha.
took up his abode in it, so that no one dare sit there. His wife, however, so longed to sit on it that she determined to do so at any risk; to every one's astonishment she was quite uninjured, so, when her son was born, he was named Sreyāṁsanātha, the Lord of Good, for already he had enabled his mother to cast out an evil spirit and so do a world of good (śreyātisa). His sign is the rhinoceros; one crore of sägara of time had intervened before his
birth; and his height was eighty bow-shots. 12. Vāsu. Before the birth of the twelfth Tirthankara the gods pujya. Indra and Vasu used to go and worship the father of the
future saint, and as the father's name was Vasupūja and the god Indra used to give him jewels called vasu, the child was naturally enough called Väsupujya. His sign is the male buffalo, and he passed to mokşa from his birth. place, Campāpuri, accompanied by six hundred Sādhus. Fifty-four sāgara of time had intervened, and his height
was seventy arrow-shots. 13. Vima. The sign of the thirteenth Tirthankara is the boar. ļanātha. He got his name Vimalanātha, Lord of Clearness, through
the clearness (vima!atā) of intellect with which he endowed his mother before his birth, and which she displayed in the following manner. A certain man and his wife un. wisely stayed in a temple inhabited by a female demon, who, falling in love with the husband, assumed his real wife's form. The miserable man was quite unable to tell which was his true wife, and asked the king of Kam. pilapura to distinguish between them. It was the queen, however, who solved the difficulty. She knew the long reach that witches and only witches have, and telling the husband to stand a long distance off, challenged the two wives to prove their chastity by touching him. Both
| SR No. | 011099 |
| Book Title | Heart of Jainism |
| Original Sutra Author | N/A |
| Author | Mrs Sinclair Stevenson |
| Publisher | Mrs Sinclair Stevenson |
| Publication Year | 1915 |
| Total Pages | 365 |
| Language | English |
| Classification | Book_English |
| File Size | 29 MB |