Chitrabhanu Man with Vision

Author(s): Clare Rosenfield
Publisher: Jain Meditation International Centre New York

Page 23

Within a few weeks, Chhogalal returned to Tumkur and his business, leaving his wife and child in her parents' care. Nine months later, according to custom, he took the long trip back to Pavata to accompany his family back to Tumkur. Three years later, the journey was repeated for the occasion of another joyful moment, the birth of Magi, Rup's little sister.
Message in the Stars
Rup and his little sister were both brought up in Tumkur in the house where their father had his cloth shop. Tumkur was in a land brimming with tales of chivalry, studded here and there with feudal forts and rajdom's castles. Deeper than changing dynasties and boastings of conquest ran a sure and profound current — a faith in life, a compassion for all living beings, a love for contemplation, an appreciation, of the simple nonacquisitive life. In the third century B.C. a great Jain monk, who was also a scholar, Achāryā Bhadrabāhu, brought twelve thousand disciples to the south after intuiting an on-coming twelve-year famine in the north. From then on, the south became permeated with these living feelings.
Such pure values made their way into the minds and hearts of the villagers and into their everyday life. One who felt a deep respect for them was Rup and Magi's father. Chhogalal was not like other cloth merchants. He lived according to Bhagwan Mahavtr's principle — to earn no more profit than was necessary, to give the surplus to those in need, and to be contented with what he had. In keeping with this outlook, his prices were fixed and fair. Soon the people became accustomed to his unusually straightforward way and no longer expected to bargain with him. They loved him for his honest approach.
There in Tumkur the infant Rup turned into a boy and was brought up unhampered, natural, free. A joyful barefoot tod