________________
68
days and forbade the taking of life throughout the kingdom. The offerings of living animals to gods were also stopped. 26
That Kumārapāla, realising like Akbar under Jain influence that it is not meet that man should make his stomach the grave of animals, forbade the destruction of life in his kingdom, is proved by other evidence also. According to the Dvyās'. raya, king Kumārapāla seeing a man taking four or five half-dead goats to a butcher, felt much that the people in his kingdom killed beasts, and so forbade the taking of life in his kingdom. Animal sacrifices were stopped. As the result of ibis edict, the ascetics in Pāli land (Marwad ) did not get the skin of the deer to use as a covering, and the people of Panobaladeśa, though formerly great destroyers of life, were prevented from taking life.
We, therefore, come to the conclusion that Kumarapāla and Hemachandra must have met in the reign of Jayasimha before Kumarapala was forced to wander to save his life.
The Prabandhas relate that Hemasuri bad helped Kumdrapāla in his days of adversity and forecast that he would be a king of Gujarat.
(26) Somaprabha, Kumarapalapratibodha, P. Po 40-41. Shree Sudharmaswami Gyanbhandar-Umara, Surat www.umaragyanbhandar.com
