Immortality and Joy

Author(s): Champat Rai Jain
Publisher: Champat Rai Jain

Page 12

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mulating merit and the increase of piety and dharma. The objection : how can an inanimate object, like an image of metal or stone, be the cause of so much good ?- is met by the parable of the dead harlot propounded in the Parast'a Purana, The deceasee courtesan, in the porable, was a woman of remarkable beauty and of great personal charms, and as her body lay on the ground three living beings-a sadhu, a licentious libertine and a jachal- ga: hercd round it. Of these, thit: sudhu was filled wiih the spirit of vairagya at the sight of her matchless beauty, and with pity for lier departed spirit, thinking that if her life had been as virtuous and good as her beauty was faultless she was certain to obtain heaven and nirvana. The libertine, on the other hand, feasted his tres ci: the volup. tuous contour of the prestrate figure before him, and abandoned himself to the agrecable hallucinations of pleasure it was calculated to afford in life. As for the jackal, he only prowled about, waiting for the departure of the other two to devour the corpse. The effect of their diverse nicial states on the three individuals was that the sadliu went to heaven after death, the libertine descended into hell, but the jackal remained where he was before, that is to say he was reborn among the beasts of prey in his next incarnation. The principle to be deduced from the parable is that internal mental states are occasioned by external cbjects and things, and become the determining factors of the conditions of future life.