Jain Journal 1968 01

Author(s): Jain Bhawan Publication
Publisher: Jain Bhawan Publication

Page 18

108
JAIN JOURNAL
could readily look through the whole plot but still he did not disoblige her. On the day following the sacrifice the king arrived with his mother to honour his promise ; but alas! not only were the two poisoned, the king was even strangled to death by the crooked consort who feigning grief fell on the bosom of the dying monarch.
Then Yasodhara and Candramati passed through a number of births in which they took animal forms. First they became a peacock and a dog and both were presented to king Yasomati (Yasodhara's son and successor to the throne) by their respective owners. One day when the peacock saw Amrtamati indulging in sexual pleasure with the cripple elephant-driver right in the palace, he attacked her. But the peacock was killed by the dog and the dog by the king.
The two were then reborn as a stag and a serpent, as a huge fish and a crocodile in the Sipra river, as a pair of goats in the village of Kankali near Ujjain, and then as a cock and a hen in a Candāla settlement near Ujjaini. The cock and the hen were accidentally killed by Yasomati who was anxious to show his skill in archery to his queen Kusumavali and this time they entered the womb of the queen herself as twins. After this entry, there was a remarkable change in the queen herself at whose instance injury to animals and sale of liquor and meat were prohibited in the kingdom. Further, she expressed a keen desire to have the teachings of ahimsā expounded to her by suitable teachers. The king now had no doubt that some pious Jaina soul had come into the womb. In due course, the queen gave birth to a boy and a girl who were named Yasastilaka and Madanamati, better known as Abhayuaruci and Abhayamati on account of the mother's solicitude for abhaya (protection) for all creatures. The brother and the sister grew up and it was rumoured that Abhayaruci would be crowned as king and Abhayamati would be given in marriage to the king of Abicchatra.
One day when king Yasomati was on a hunting expedition, he met the Jaina sage Sudatta. The king was not generally favourably disposed towards the Jaina monks but at the suggestion of a mrchant named Kalyanamitra, he had an audience with Sudatta. The king was deeply impressed by the spiritual eminence of the sage and came to know from him that his own children were once his parent and grand-parent reborn after passing through beastly forms on account of the sacrifice of an artificial cock. The Jaina sage further communicated that the king's own mother Amrtamati had gone to the fifth hell on account of all her sins after having suffered from leprosy at her old age. At these words the king was terrified to perceive the enormity of his own sins and de