Book Title: Jain Legend Vol 1
Author(s): Hastimal Maharaj, Shuganchand Jain, P S Surana
Publisher: Hastimal Maharaj Shugan C Jain P S Surana

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Page 175
________________ around outside this way, your delicate body is withering away with dust and dirt. Staying within the palace, you can practise some other arts and skills." Vasudeva listened to his elder brother and started spending time in the palace. One day, seeing the hunchbacked maid preparing a body-paste for Samudravijaya, Vasudeva asked her, “isn't this paste for me?” The maid said, “You have done a crime, so the king does not give you clothes and ornaments and paste.” When Vasudeva forcibly took away the paste despite the maid's refusal, the maid remarked, "It is because of this kind of behaviour that you have been disallowed in royal halls, you do not give up your immodesty.” Shocked, when lovingly Vasudeva spoke to the maid and pleased her, she said, "Actually, some people have told the king Samudravijaya that when prince Vasudeva takes a stroll along the main streets, women leave all their work and chase him and keep staring at him, spellbound. Some young women in fact keep waiting for his arrival. There is hysteria about you all over. Hearing this, your brother has made this arrangement for you.” Hearing this Vasudeva, was worried and thought in this state, it is better to leave from here quietly. In the evening, he got out of the royal palace with an attendant called Vallabha. On the way was a graveyard where he saw a dead body. Prince Vasudeva asked his attendant to prepare a funeral pyre with some logs of wood. When it was ready, Vasudeva told the attendant, “Go bring my jewel case. I shall donate something and enter the pyre.” Hearing these words of the prince the attendant began to weep. He said, “If you want to enter the pyre, I too, shall follow you.” The prince said, “Okay, but first bring the jewel-case. And yes, do not tell anyone about this." The attendant returned to the city. Vasudeva set fire to the pyre. Close by on a tree he wrote, “Despite being one of true character and conduct, people have suspected me, hence I am giving myself up to the fire." Even before the attendant returned, Vasudeva left that place. On the way, he came across a bullock cart, with a woman who was going from her inlaw's place to her mother's. An old man was accompanying her. Seeing Vasudeva walking on foot, she felt pity and she asked the old man to take him in the cart; he will rest in our home for a night and leave. Listening to the old man, Vasudeva sat in the bullock cart and, reaching his house, after a bath and a meal, began to prepare for rest. When he was resting he overheard people discussing outside a Yak a shrine that 175

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