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Ancient Jaina Hymns
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ture, and therefore, handed down in slightly varying shapes!). According to the version followed by our poet, their gist is as follows:
Muni Suvrata once came to know by his omniscience that an Aśvamedha-sacrifice was about to be performed at Broach, and that a stallion was destined to be sacrificed who, in a former human existence, had been his friend. 14 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"5. Deciding to save him, the Lord hastened from Pratişthāna, where he was staying, to Broach, doing the whole distance of 60 yojana ( = 240 miles ) in one night. He halted in the grove 'Korințaka-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 has been his friend, suddenly came over him, and got with it, religious enlightenment. Fortified by the requisite observances, including the vow of fasting unto death, he died with a serene mind, and was thus re-incarnated as a god. In grateful remembrance, this god built, on the scene of his enlightenment, a temple dedicated to Muni Suvrata. According to the present version, it contained the foot-prints of the Lord. This temple became known as 'Aśvāvabodha', i.e., 'Stallion's Enlightenment’, vying in religious importance with the local 'Aśvamedha' Tīrtha of the Hindus.
Near the Aśvāvabodha Temple, a female bird, according to our hymn a 'vata-babalikā' ( 'sabalika' = Prākrta 'savaliyā' = Gujarati 'samali' ), was once hit by an arrow. Wounded to death, she fell down at the foot of the Banyan tree, which contained the nest with her young ones. Two Jaina Sādhus saw her, and, desirous to help her to improve her future life, whispered the 'Namaskāramantra 20 into her ear. Soothed by the sound of the words of this holiest of all Jaina Prayer formulas, which is believed to possess
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