Chakkammuvaeso

Author(s): Madhusudan Modi
Publisher: Oriental Institute

Page 61

Lii
Madanāvali, putting aside Vidyādharas, selected King Simhadhvaja and put a garland on his neck. They married and loved each other very much. Then came the time for her misdeed to fructify. A very bad smell came out of her body. People ran away from her presence. The king called his physician on the advice of his ministers. [K. 11.] The physician could not cure her and said that the evil smell was the result of her past action. The king got a palace made in the forest and the queen lived there and repented for her deed of the past life. [K. 12 ] In the meantime, a pair of parrots sat on the window of her palace. The parrot told her the story of how subhamati had committed a sin by washing an ill-smelling ascetic. Madanāvali on hearing this story remembered her past birth. [K. 13. ] The she-parrot asked the parrrot what happened afterwards. He said that Madanāvali who was before her, was Subhamati in her previous birth; and he further informed her that by worshipping Jina by bathing with fragrant things for seven days she could expiate her sin. As soon as Madnavali tried to offer her ornaments to the parrot, it vanished from the sight. [K. 14. ] She decided to ask about it to her learned preceptor. She performed for seven days the ablution of the Jina with fragrant things and soon her bad smell vanished. She had then a very fregrant smell and the king was informed about it. [K. 15.] The king went to her and brought her to the town with a great festival. They lived happily. In the meantime, an ascetic named Yaśodhara came there. The queen insisted upon the king to see him. [K. 16. ] The queen, getting an opportunity asked him who the parrot was. The sage replied that he was the ascetic who in the next birth became a god and came to her as a parrot to free her from her sin, and that he was as a god present in the assembly. [K. 17. ] She expressed her gratitude to that god who told her that he would fall from his god-state in seven days and would be preached by her. The god then went away. She asked the preceptor how she would know him. The preceptor said that when she would be in penance, he would disturb her by his amorous requests. [K. 18. ] The queen then asked the king to permit her to become a nun. The king dissuaded her but she preached to the king. The king then permitted her to become a nun. She as a nun practised penance. [K. 19.) Then the god after seven days was born as a Vidyādhara prince by name Mțgāņka and being young married Ratnāvali, the daughter of the yakşa king by name Gaganagati. When he was going in his air-car for a Svayamvara, he saw the nun practising penance. [K. 20. ] He descended from his air-car and asked her why she wasted her youth and beauty. [. 21. ] The more she repulsed him, the more he insisted. She remembered what was told her by the sage. [K. 22.] She decided to preach him and turn him away from his evil path. [K. 23.] He remembered his previous birth by her preaching, took initiation, became a monk and was reborn after death as a god in Acyuta Heaven ; while she, after death, was born in Brahma-Heaven where she would expiate her actions and would thereafter obtain absolution.