ISJS Jainism Study Notes E5 Vol 01

Author(s): International School for Jain Studies
Publisher: International School for Jain Studies

Page 236

2.2.4 Event oriented: Rakşā Bandhana The story goes that King of Ujjain had four principal ministers who were strong critics of Jainism. They had to accompany the king to pay obeisance to a group of Jain sādhus visiting Ujjain. The sādhus were observing silence. So the four ministers started debating various Jain tenets with the sādhus who did not respond at all to their questions. To take revenge of their insult, they went at night with their swords to kill the sādhus. When they started to kill the sādhus, through divine grace, they were frozen to a standstill position. In the morning when the king went there, he felt highly insulted and threw all the four ministers out of his kingdom. All the four went to Hastinapur. There they got appointed to different important places by the king. One day, the king became happy with their work and gave them a boon of being the king for seven days. By chance, the same ācārya with 700 sādhus visited Hastinapur. On knowing this, the ministers organized a major yajña where human beings had to be sacrificed. Knowing this, one of the sādhus who had special divine powers, disguised him as a dwarf Hindu monk went to the ministers and asked for donations of three steps of land for worship. Seeing the small size of the monk, they granted his wish. So in first step the dwarf monk covered the entire country and was about to take the second step; when the ministers were shocked and begged forgiveness from the dwarf monk. So the fire put around the seven hundred sādhus was set aside and they were saved of their life. From that day onwards, this day is celebrated as Raksā Bandhana, the day when sisters primarily tie a thread around the fist of their brothers and seek a promise that they will protects them in times o difficulty.
2.2.5 Event oriented: Death or Mrtyu Mahotsava Jain literature is abundant with details as to how a laity should die. Death is described as a special event when the soul sheds its old cloths (body) and acquires the new body as per the karmas it has accumulated. Hence the emphasis is on developing full detachment with all worldly things, including family and body, concentrate on the self and the virtues of pure soul so that the soul peacefully leaves the old body and acquires a good body for further purification. We shall review this separately as a full paper in details but the main activity is welcome death with open arms and voluntarily and happily shed the old body contemplating on pure soul status.
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