Jain Spirit 2000 03 No 03

Author(s): Jain Spirit UK
Publisher: UK Young Jains

Page 32

A 1940 print of the story
O
nce upon a time there was a man. He was travelling with a party which happened to pass through a thick forest full of wild beasts and robbers. In the middle of the forest, they were attacked by a band of robbers. The party fled for their lives in all directions; the man became separated from the group, and lost his way. When he looked back to see where he was, he saw a mad elephant running furiously towards him. He realized that if he did not find shelter, he would be killed instantly by the elephant. Noticing a well, he thought: "This elephant is sure to kill me, but I may perhaps save myself by jumping into this well." So he jumped into the well, grasping one of the branches of a banyan tree overhanging the well.
At the bottom of the well, the man saw a huge python ready to swallow him, should he fall, and at the bottom, on the four sides of the well, he could see four cobras hissing at him. Two rats, one white and one black, were eating away the branch of the banyan tree which supported him. At the top of this branch there was a beehive full of bees circling around him. The elephant was standing on the brink of the well, and as it tried to capture the man with its mighty trunk, it made the branch move
SELF-DECEPTION
SCA
SELF-DECEPTION
K.V. Mardia presents a parable illustrating how important it is for us to distinguish between truth and illusion.
to and fro, while causing some drops of | Deceit (the four main Passions). The honey to fall on the man's lips. At that branch of the banyan tree represents the moment, a monk happened to arrive at short duration of this earthly life. The the side of the well opposite to the two rats, white and black, represent elephant, and offered to help rescue the Time, day and night, which exhaust his man from the well. However, he seemed earthly span. The bees in the hive are to be momentarily satisfied with the organs of the Senses and the honey situation whilst he had the sweet taste of drops represent sensuous Pleasures. The honey on his lips. He did not realize that monk represents the True Religion. So the branch of the tree would be eaten the whole drama comes down to this: away by the rats and then he would have the common man, ignoring the fact that no support at all, or the whole tree his life may be cut off at any time by would be uprooted by the elephant and death, satisfies himself by enjoying he would fall down only to be sensuous pleasures and is oblivious to swallowed by the python. the truths offered by philosophy: he is being influenced by anger, greed, ego and deceit.
This whole drama is a symbol of the delusional state of man. The forest is the cycle of Birth and Death, and the man in the forest is the ordinary, worldly Man. The mad elephant that ran after him is Death; the well his earthly Life; the python the symbol of the lowest state of existence (Hell). The four cobras are the symbols of Anger, Greed, Ego and
Kanti Mardia is Professor of Statistics at the University of Leeds. He is author of The Scientific Foundation of Jainism' (Motilal Banarsidas, 2nd Edition, 1998) and founder of the Yorkshire Jain Foundation in Leeds, England.
March May 2000 Jain Spirit
31