Chakkammuvaeso

Author(s): Madhusudan Modi
Publisher: Oriental Institute

Page 69

LX
(Sandhi : 8]
[K. 1.] This section is in the praise of the worship of Jina with incense. The story is told in that connection.
There was a town named Potanapura in Bhārata. A king named Vajrasimha ruled there. He had two queens Kamalā and Vimalā. They had two sons Kamala and Vimala. Once the king saw the hand of Kamala and asked the astrologer who his successor would be. The astrologer said that the son of Kamalā would be after him as his successor to the kingdom but Vimala would rule the kingdom. [K. 2. ] The king then got Kamala brought to him and ordered his servant to leave the child in a thick forest. Kamalā and all the populace were in grief. Now the Bhārunda bird saw the child in the forest and picked him up. But another Bhārunda bird came there and a fight took place and the child fell in a well; but a man who had fallen in the well picked him up from drowning. He was anxious how the child without mother's milk would live. (K. 3. ] The child and the man began to cry loudly. A merchant named Dhanapati had camped there. He heard their cries and saved them. (K. 4.] The merchant then asked him who he and the child were. He replied that a poor man wandering in the forest, fell into the well covered with grass. He said, he afflicted with hunger, could not get out and in the meantime, the child fell. He held up the child and forgot his own affliction on account of the misery of the child. He requested the merchant to look after the child as his own son. [K. 5.) The merchant took the child, named him Vinayamdhara and gave him to his wise. They brought him up much better than their own son. But people used to call him the merchant's servant. He was disappointed and went to the Jina-temple. There he saw a monk preaching religion. [K. 6. ] He preached that the offering of incense to the Jina was meritorious. But he, the poor man—how was he to obtain it? When he went home, the merchant, who had received a highly fragrant incense from some incense-merchant, gave it as a present to Vinayamdhara to scent his clothes. Vinayamdhara went to the Jina-temple and offered it there. In the meantime a pair of Yaksa passing by was attracted by the fragrance and found it coming from the Jina-temple. [K. 7.] The wife of the Yakșa asked the Yakşa to stop there so long as the man, in meditation, worshipping the Jina with incense did not go out. But finding the man unmoving, the Yakṣa took the form of a serpent and came to the temple. All people were afraid and ran away. But Vinayamdhara remained there motionless in meditation. The serpent coiled round his body. [K. 8. ] When he did not move from his meditation, the Yaksa was pleased. He gave him a jewel that would remove serpent's poison and promised he would come, when he needed his help.
Now there was a king named Ratnaratha. He had a queen named Kanakāvali. They had one daughter only named Bhānumati and one hundred sons.