________________
SEEING HOLY LIFE IN PRACTICE
173
Tīrthamkara, Parśvanāth, who lived about 2900 years ago. He is always depicted with a cap of seven (or more) cobra heads because during his life he was protected by the serpent-god Dharanendra. The fact is that this image is visited daily by a living cobra, a life size-cobra, which moves around the statue trice and then sometimes climbs on top of it. Apparently this snake is worshiping Parśvanāth. The Jains explained this by supposing that this snake may have been a human in his former life, someone who had strong devotional feelings for Parśvanāth and perhaps had spent his or her life praying to him. But specific karma which the soul of that person – now the snake - still had to work out had made him incarnate in this form. Jains believe that it is possible for a human after his death to be reborn on earth as an animal, plant, or even a microorganism or mineral as the result of particular wrongdoings. If this is true, the higher aspects of the ex-human of course remain “elsewhere” in latency. When all these karmas have had their specific effect, one can be reborn as a human and pursue the noble path or neglect it, followed by a matching result. When we visited the shrine the snake wasn't at home. I would have loved to take a picture. But somebody had a photo. We were taken to a house, where we were met by a very unpleasant old man. He had a discolored photo of the icon with the snake hanging in a frame on the wall. We were allowed to see it. But take a picture of it ... never!!!!!!! Even the great guru Achāryaji himself he would not allow a that. And so we learned that the desire for an occult phenomenon can get so much hold on a man that he turns maliciously against the real thing: the guru is for everyone a living example of the highest detachment and ethics. So another opportunity to record a real miracle for science had been lost.
Our aim was to prove that the so-called Indus script and Indus culture, whose remnants are mainly found in the region of Harappa and Mohenjo-daro in Pakistan, was once spread out all over India. Therefore we had to visit remote places for
Jain Education International
For Personal & Private Use Only
www.jainelibrary.org
