Jain Journal 1971 04

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

Page 55

160
JAIN JOURNAL.
tude of prosperity and honour ; why should you bother yourself ... for the twelfth voyage (which) again is supposed to be beset with difficulties." (But they) repeated their request for the second and the third time. When the (merchant) could not persuade them ... they at last permitted them, though much against their will. Then those Makandiyas took (the four-fold merchandise, viz.,) that which could be counted, balanced, measured and scrutinised (and started).
Now when those Makandiyas had gone many hundreds of yojanas on the Salt Sea there appeared many hundreds of evil omens like a sudden thundering, the roaring of clouds, etc., and there also blew an adverse gale. Then that ship, being shaken, stirred and tossed, was overpowered with the (lashes of) fierce waves ; and bounched up and down like a (rubber) ball tapped by the hand on the floor... (At last) all her masts and bows were pounded, her keel and the deck were destroyed, her rudder was bent and boards were smashed and ripped asunder. She was (then) open on all sides ... (when) she stranded on the peak of a mountain concealed in water. With her flag-staff shattered, with hundreds of poles broken to pieces, she was wrecked with crushing noise, there and then. And then as the ship was being drowned, all men on board with all their vast merchandise, were also drowned in the sea.
Then those two sons of (the merchant) Makandi, who were very wise, dextrous, skilled, clever, sagacious, and endowed with skill in (various) crafts, and who were skilled and trained for all the most difficult tasks of manning a ship; who had many successes to their credit, who had their wits about them, and were of skilled hands found a big wooden plank. There was a large island named Ratnadvipa on this part of the sea. ... It was graced with many trees and groves, beautiful, charming, agreeable, handsome and pleasing to the sight. In the midst of that (island), there was a very big palace. There in that palace lived a deity named Ratnadvipadevata, who was wicked, ferocious, dredful, vile, and adventurous. To the four quarters of that beautiful palace there were four groves of trees, black and of a black sheen. Then those sons of Makandi, being carried away by that wooden plank drifted towards the Ratnadvipa island. (After getting) a footing, (they) rested for a while, left that wooden plank, and went to the island ; there they searched for fruit, and ate them. Then they searched for the cocoa-nut fruit, broke them open, and anointed each other's bodies with that cocoa-nut oil, and plunging into the lake had a bath. ... Then that Ratnadvipadevata saw those sons of Makandi by means of her avadhi