Ancient Jaina Hymns

Author(s): Charlotte Krause
Publisher: Oriental Institute

Page 38

ANCIENT JAINA HYMNS (9) Munisuvrata, son of King Sumitra of Rāja
gļha, of the Harivamsa dynasty, and Queen Padmā, and later himself King of Magadha, which position he resigned, to become a homeless ascetic, attain omniscience, and after a long and beneficent
career as a Tirthaikara, enter Mokşa. While dwelling on this last existence, the poet alludes to some of the stereotyped features common to all Tīrthankaras, the birth festival celebrated by the gods, and the supernatural knowledge inherent in them from birth, mentioning also Munisuvrata's black complexion, the characteristic tortoise-mark on his body, his bodyheight of 20 "dhanu" (i. e., 80 cubits), and his age being 30,000 years.
The next stanzas, 8-14, describe the conventional "Atisayas" and other supernatural phenomena believed to accompany a Tirthaikara's appearance (as specified above).
Then follows, in st. 15, the list of Munisuvrata's five "Kalyānakas”, viz. : (1) entering his mother's womb on Śrāvaņa
Pürņimā, (2) birth on the dark Astami of Jyestha, (3) initiation as a monk on the bright Dvādasī
of Phālguna, (4) attainment of omniscience on the dark
Dvādasī of Phālguņa, (5) "nirvāņa" on the dark Navami of Jyeştha.
With regard to all the above data of Munisuvrata's life, our poet agrees with a tradition represented by Somatilaka Sūri's "Saptatisata-sthāna-frakarana'', as
(1) Loc. cit. Stbāna 1, st. 26.