Jain Journal 1973 04

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

Page 30

APRIL, 1973
187
and have decorated all places with coloured canopies, scatter fried rice, imprint at diverse places five fiingers in open palm with Gosirsa, fresh red sandal, and Dardara (sandal), place and have placed luck-foreboding pitchers (at various places) and beautify and have beautified the door part of each arch with homage vases ; decorate and have decorated all places with flower garlands tied loosely and tied tightly, thus making very thick ; fill and have filled the whole town with fragrance by burning the best black aloe, Kundurukka and Turuska with incences, and turn the whole city into a cup of fragrance by spraying perfumes ; engage and have engaged many players, dancers, rope-dancers, wrestlers, boxers, jesters, story-tellers, ballad-singers, actors, messengers, pole dancers, fruit-mongers, bag-pipers, lute players and Talacaras with their innumerable attendants; and erect and have erected a thousand pillars and a thousand posts and start the festivities. Thus giving start to the festivities, report to me the execution of my orders.” 100
Thus having been ordered by king Siddhartha, the royal house-hold keepers became glad at heart, happy, joyful and delighted, their hearts throbbing with glee. (They) touched their head with ten nails as aforesaid, ... till hurried to Kundapura to open the prison gates, and so on ... till (again) started the festivities. Having started the festivities, they touched their head with their ten fingers, and reported to king Siddhartha the execution of his order. 101
Then king Siddhartha went in the direction of the gymnasium. Thereafter, with the entire royal household, and (himself) adorned with flowers, perfumed robes, garlands and ornaments, king Siddhartha held for ten days 'sthiti-pratijyā ceremony under the din and sound of trumpets, with great state and grandeur, attended by a large train of soldiers, vehicles and attendants and with innumerable guests and visitors, with the city filled by the sound, din and noise of conches, cymbals, drums, castanets, horns, small drums, kettle drums, Murajas, Mridangas, and Dundubhis ; with the abolition of all excisees, customs and agricultural taxes, with the cessation of purchase and sell, weighing and measuring at the shops, with the abolition of all disproportionate punishments and bad punishments, with the cancellation of debts, with prohibition imposed on collectors to enter the residence of subjects : with dance by the best dancing girls continuing, followed suitably at every step by the sounds of Mridanga with garlands of fresh flowers never allowed to dry, and with the city dwellers and the dwellers of the entire realm deeply immersed in merry-making, festivities and play. 102
In the course of this 'sthiti-pratijyā ceremony, which lasted for ten days, king Siddhartha offered and had offered hundreds, thousands,