Jain Story Book

Author(s): Manu Doshi
Publisher: Manu Doshi

Page 56

milk the cows, he went home entrusting his oxen to the care of Lord. When he came back, the animals had gone far away grazing the grass. He therefore asked the Lord about their whereabouts. The Lord was meditating and did not reply. The cowboy repeatedly asked Him about the animals, but did not get any reply. Thereupon he got mad and asked the Lord whether He had ears or only holes. As he did not get any response, the cowboy decided to teach Him a lesson for not listening. He brought forth two sharp thorns and pierced them deep into the ears of the Lord.
The cowboy also took care that no one could notice the thorns in the ears. He therefore broke off the exterior parts of the thorns. The thorns gave continuing pain to the Lord but He faced it with equanimity. In that condition, He reached Apapapuri and went for alms from a house-holder named Siddhartha. That time, Kharak a physician-friend of Siddhartha was sitting there. Smart as he was, he could make out the Lord's pain. They examined Him at length and located the thorns which were then skillfully extracted by threm.
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EQUANIMITY IN DISTRESS
When Lord Mahavir left the home at the age of 30, He knew that before gaining omniscience, He had to shake off lot of previously acquired Karmas. He therefore embarked upon the solitary journey of spiritual pursuit that was going to last more than 12 years. During that period he had to face many distresses that we know as Upasarga. Four of them were major ones that any one else could have hardly been able to bear. The first major Upasarga was faced during the very first year, when He decided to meditate overnight in the temple of Yaksha Shulpani at the village of Asthik. That Yaksha could not tolerate any one in the temple after the dark. In order to scare Him to death, the Yaksha first made very horrible, deafening, thunderous noise that could have caused death of any ordinary person. That however failed to intimidate the Lord. Then the Yaksha assumed, one after another, the forms of ghost, fierce elephant, cobra etc. and terribly hurt the Lord. Then he inflicted horrible pain to the sensitive parts of His body. That way, he distressed the Lord for the whole night, but failed to disturb the concentration of His mind.
The second major Upasarga, the Lord came across during the second year from the highly poisonous snake Chandakaushik. That story is known to every one and does not need to be narrated here. The third one He had to face during the 11th year of His spiritual pursuit at a place called Pedhal. There He decided to concentrate and meditate for the whole night. Now it so happened that the heavenly king, Indra visualized what the Lord had undertaken. He was aware of His tenacity to remain undisturbed even against heavy odds. He adored and praised in his assembly the unimaginable capacity of the Lord to withstand any type of distress. One of the heavenly beings named Sangam could not believe that. He was very proud of the heavenly might and was sure that a human being cannot stand against that. He therefore came to Pedhal with the intention to disturb the Lord from His meditation. The efforts, that he made, are graphically described by the great sage Hemchandracharya as under.
Sangam first rained obnoxious particles of dust and covered the entire body of the Lord, to the extent that it was difficult for Him even to breathe. This however failed to disturb Him. Then, one after another, Sangam produced wild ants, fleas, scorpions, weasels, snakes and rats to bite and cause intolerable pain on the various parts of the Lord's body. In spite of the terrible distress caused by them, particularly on the sensitive parts of the body, the Lord stayed undisturbed. Thereupon, Sangam produced a huge elephant that tossed the Lord up and down with the trunk and hurt Him with his large tusks. As the Lord still remained undisturbed, Sangam produced a mighty female elephant who tossed her big head with the Lord's body and terribly hurt Him. As that too failed to disturb the Lord, Sangam assumed the form of a horrible ghost. With his sharp teeth in the wide open flaming mouth and long arms, he terribly hurt the Lord who however