Jain Journal 1968 10

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

Page 23

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JAIN JOURNAL
go to the king after taking bath in perfumed water and then smearing her body with the four sweet liquids. The king licked her body and kept himself alive for a few days. Ajatasatru finally stopped her visiting the king. Then the king lived by walking about in his cell meditating. When Ajatasatru observed that the king was not dying, he called the barbers and ordered, "Cut open the feet of my father, the king, with a weapon, smear them with salt and oil, and roast them on the kher-wood coals." The barbers did this and the king died.
Repentance
Both the traditions speak of Kunika's repentance at the death of Srenika. According to the Jaina tradition, Kunika had already repented before the king's death for his misdeeds, on hearing about his father's filial love from his mother. Seeing his father dead, he fell down on the earth as a campaka tree cut by a chopper falls. Regaining consciousness after a couple of hours, he bitterly wept, and exclaimed, “Oh ! What a sinner am I! How irreligious and doer of wicked deeds am I ! I imprisoned with chains my godly father. It is because of me that king Srenika has died.” Being grief-stricken, he left Rajagrha and resided in Campanagari and made it the capital of Magadha.
According to the Buddhist tradition, a son was born to Ajatasatru on the day of Bimbisara's death. Messengers delivered a written message about the birth of a prince. The king felt overjoyed with affection and filial love. Even his bones and marrows were seized of happiness. The joy he experienced at the birth of his son made him realize something of affection his own father must have felt for him. Immediately he ordered his servants to set free his father. Messengers also handed over to him the death news of Bimbisara. On reading the news of his father's death, he screamed and ran to his mother and asked “Did my father love me?" The mother narrated the episode of sucking the finger. Then he became all the more grief-torn and repented for his deeds.
Comments
The episodes of dream longings, finger wound, imprisonment, etc., in the narratives of the two traditions are different but, from the basic point of view, there exists some similarity. This similarity in the basic viewpoints is not unnatural. Every major incident, even in its own period, gets currency in diverse forms and versions, the more so when there is a time lag. The Jajna canon Niryāvalikā is believed