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108
JAINA STORIES
"On this, an urgent session of the council of ministers was called at once wherein it was decided that at some dead hour of the night, when the royal couple would be fast asleep under the spell of some drug or drink, their cot should be carried to some far-off forest and discarded there. That would be an end of the trouble Thereafter the crownprince should be placed on the throne For, the ministers rightly felt that a king ceased to be a king if he discharged not the royal duties Even people of the kingdom were wholly disgusted at the light-heartedness and indifference of their monarch
"The decision was given effect to One night, the carriers picked up the cot on which the royal couple lay and discarded it in a far-off forest. As the king and the queen were under the spell of liquor, they could know nothing. After some time, when the kind regained some isense and looked around, he could see nothing in the pitchy darkness, but he had some sort of a feeling that he was not in the palace chamber. He rubbed his eyes to make sure about -the situation, but there was no improvement. And he did it again He gave a push to the queen, but she said, 'It's not yet morning. Please disturb me not.'
"But the king was totally upset He pulled her up and told her that there had been a total down-turn of their luck Sukumala now opened her eyes and was surprised at what she saw She exclaimed 'Is it a trick or treachery? Have we been exiled ? Are our men and ministers so ungrateful as this? They depend on their king and yet they have betrayed him They must have taken advantage of your goodness You should at once return to the palace and punish all the malefactors,'
'Jitasatru said
*But how can I blame others when all this is the outcome of my own doing Had I not been a blind victim of lust, surely I could not have been insulted like
