Ancient Jaina Hymns

Author(s): Charlotte Krause
Publisher: Oriental Institute

Page 42

ANCIENT JAINA HYMNS at Broach, and that a stallion was destined to be sacrificed who, in a former human existence, had been his friend'. As according to the Jaina doctrine, dying with a depressed or frightened or otherwise worried mind causes re-incarnation in a low order of living beings, the Lord foresaw that this might happen to the stallion, who owed his present plight too to such a previous death. Deciding to save him, the Lord hastened from Pratisthāna, where he was staying, to Broach, doing the whole distance of 60 yojana (= 240 miles) in one night. He halted in the grove "Koriņtaka-vana" near Broach, where his Samavasarana was arranged. High and low, gods, men and animals flocked there to listen to his sermon. In the crowd was the sacrificial stallion“. Listening, the remembrance of his former life, when the Lord had been his friend, suddenly came over him, and with it, religious enlightenment. Fortified by the re
9. Purătarapratandha-sangraha (Singhi Jaina Series), pp. 40 and 76.
10. Jinamandana Gani, Kumārapāla-prabandhi, p. 74; composed V. S. 1.92.
11. Somadharma Gani, Upadeśa-saptati (Ahmedabad, V. S. 1998). Adhikāra II, Upadesa 2, p. 26 a, composed V. S. 1503.
12. Jinaharga Gani, Vastopala-caritra (Translation into Gujarati, Jaina Dharma Prasaraka Sabhā, V. S. 1974), Prastāva IV, p. 136 f., composed V. S. 1793.
13. Lakşmivijaya Sūri, Upadesa-pråsāda, Sthambha V, Vyākhyāna 70, p. 148 ff., composed V. S. 1843.
Besides, most works dealing with Ambada and with Te apāla refer to the subject : vide M. D. Desai, Short History of Jaina Literature, V. S. 1989, paras, 313, 324, 385, 456, 527, Note 374.
(1) According to most sources, this happened in the 7th of the above mentioned nine pre-existences of Munisuvrata.
(2) On this point, the several sources greatly differ from one another. According to Hemacandra, e. g., this death occurred in the same existence in which the stallion was the friend of the Lord.
(3) The Prabhävaka-carita has "200) yojana".
(4) Hemacandra omits the Abvamedha, relating that the stallion was the mount of King Jita satru of Broach, and mere chance took it into the Samavasarana, and the Lord to Broach.