________________
King re ika had deep faith in the nirgrantha path. In the context of Meghakum ra's initiation, he said that only the nirgrantha religion is true, the best, complete, liberating and of good logic and is incomparable. In the first year after attaining omniscience when Lord Mah v ra came to R jag ha, King re ika became a Jain again.
Later, his son, K ika, along with his friends, imprisoned re ika and became king. K ika causws troubled his father in many ways. One day, when queen Celan told K ika about his father's love for him, he repented his mistake. In an emotional outburst, he went with an axe to untie his father re ika's chains. To protect his son from the sin of killing his father, re ika consumed poison on his finger ring and after death, due to biding of bad karma, went to the first hell. In his lifetime,
re ika had been devoted to Mah v ra's religion. As a result, he attained the T rthamkara gotra. After exiting from hell, he will be the first T rthamkara of the next 24 T rthamkara and like Mah v ra, shall give religious sermons.
King Ce aka
Just like re ika king Ce aka was also a firm follower of Jain religion.
va yakac r i calls him a vrat dhar r vaka (votary). He was a devotee of Lord Mah v ra, and by relation, was his maternal uncle. He was a Haihaya clan chief of the Vai 1 republic. He was a great warrior, able ruler and supporter of justice. Because of this he had to wage a fierce war with K ika and in the end, with the fall of Vai 1, disenchanted, he observed the pious death and became a god in the next life.
Aj ta atru K
ika
K ika has an important place among the devotee-kings of Lord Mah v ra. King re ika was his father and his mother was queen Celan. The mother saw a dream of a lion. During pregnancy, she had a whim to eat the heart of king re ika. With the cleverness of Abhayakum ra king
re ika fulfilled her whim, but seeing her child having such feelings in her womb, she was very unhappy. She attempted to abort the child but was unsuccessful. When he was born, she threw him in a dustbin where a cock bit his thumb finger and a fungus developed. The child started crying and re ika removed the fungal matter by sucking it out wit
352
