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Dr. Charlotte Krause : Her Life & Literature
miraculous faculties, the bird died with a calm mind. She was thus reborn as the daughter of the King of Ceylon, and was named Sudarśanā. Once, a Jaina merchant from Broach, who attended the Durbar of her father, was seized by a fit of sneezing, and spontaneously exclaimed 'Namo Arihaṁtānas'! When the sound of these words reached the ear of the Princess, she suddenly awoke to a recollection of her previous life, when, as a bird, she had heard recited the sacred mantra which contains these very words. Eager to see the scene of that event once more, she undertook a pilgrimage to Broach, accompanied by that merchant, as well as by a large retinue, accommodated in 700 ships. She became a devoted Jaina laywoman, and restored the shrine of Aśvāvabodha. In commemoration of her experience, the place became known as "Sakunikāvihāra' or 'Samalikā-vihāra’, the 'Bird's Temple'. After a virtuous life, she died and became re-incarnated as a goddess in Iśāna ( the northern half of the lowest heaven ), from where she sometimes descends to worship the Lord. Muni Suvrata, producing miraculous phenomena in the temple. Obviously, our poet refers to the latter belief, when calling the temple-walls 'adhisthita' ( st. 38 )22.
So far the legend.
To substantiate these accounts of animals - horse and bird - awakening to a recollection of pre-existences and spiritual enlightenment, the poet then quotes, in st. 21, the instance of a fish in the ‘Last Ocean', i.e., the ‘Svayambhūramaņa-samudra'. Encountering another fish, whose body faintly resembled a Jina statue, he remembered how in a previous human existence, he had seen such a Jina image ( and, so the story goes on according to Somadharma Gani's Upadeśa-saptat?), had paid many involuntary obeisances to it, as it had been placed close to a very low house-door by his devout father, in the intention of thus reforming a religiously indifferent son). This recollection inspired the fish to introspection and to a religiously blameless conduct, which caused his becoming incarnated as a god.
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