Jain Journal 1970 04

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

Page 41

APRIL, 1970
235
Salibhadra's spiritual superiority. He returned to his palace. Salibhadra now proposed to abandon the household life. Bhadra endeavoured to dissuade him, but the only compromise he would make was to abandon his wives one by one on successive days.
In the same city lived Salibhadra's sister subhadra, whose husband was called Dhanya. She told him in tears that Salibhadra was daily abandoning his wives. Dhanya remarked that such a gradual process of renunciation was far from admirable. Dhanya's seven other wives protested against this criticism on Dhanya's part, as he was making no renunciation whatever himself. On hearing this he renounced the world then and there.
Salibhadra heard of this and followed his footsteps. Dhanya and Salibhadra received ordination from the hands of Mahavira.
Dhanya and Salibhadra entered upon a life of severe asceticism. At the end of twelve years they returned to Rajagrha in the following of Mahavira. They were about to break a month's fast and visited Bhadra's palace. But Bhadra failed to recognise them in their changed guise. They received food from a woman named Mathataharika who had in the former birth been Salibhadra's mother in Saligrama.
Salibhadra and Dhanya now determined to pursue their path to the end, practised more severe asceticism, and attained to death by starvation. They were reborn in the Sarvarthasiddha heaven where they enjoyed the highest bliss.
References :
1 Kalpa Suira and Acaranga Sutra, translated by Jacobi, H., Sacred Books
of the East, Vol XXII. Coomaraswamy, A.K., Catalogue of the Indian Collections in the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Introduction, Boston, 1924. Bloomfield, M., Life and Stories of the Jaina Savior Parsvanatha, Introduc
tion, Baltimore, 1919. • Satrunjaya Mahatmyam, Weber, A., translated by Burgess, J. in Indian
Antiquary, II, 1874 ; XXX, 1901. 5 Law, Bimala Charan, Risabhadeva, the First Jaina Tirthankara, Voice of
Ahimsa, Vol. VII, No. 3-4, Aliganj, 1957. 6 Brown, W. N., The Story of Kalaka, Washington, 1933.
Bloomfield, M., The Salibhadra Carita, a story of conversion to Jaina Monkhood, J,A.O.S., XLIII, 4, 1923.