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Anand Shah | Prof. Ulrike Stark 6.8.18
choose her husband. King Prajapal grew angry, and decided to prove that karma wouldn't decide
Maynasundari's fate by picking her husband for her.
In the city of Champa, a coup had forced the Queen Kamalprabha and Prince Shripal to
flee to a community of seven hundred lepers. After Shripal contracted leprosy he was named the
king of the lepers. As a Jain shravika, Kamalprabha consulted with a Jain mendicant to
determine the best course of action. The monk assured Kamalprabha of two things: first, Shripal
would have a dharmapatni (religious wife); second, Shripal would be cured of his leprosy.
Shortly after King Prajapal's angry declaration, Shripal and his band of seven hundred
lepers passed through Ujjain. Upon hearing this, Prajapal invited Shripal to his court in order to
offer Maynasundari's hand in marriage. While Shripal initially relented on grounds that
Maynasundari receive a better husband, the marriage was soon finalized. Maynasundari chose to
go live in the jungle with Shripal rather than remain in her own palace. At this point, people had
begun to speak ill of Jainism -- not only had Jainism allowed Maynasundari to speak back to her
father, it had allowed her, a princess, to marry a leper. Distressed by this gossip, Maynasundari
went to a Jain monk and asked for a mantra that would prove the truth of Jainism. The monk
recommended the Navkar Mantra, one of the most universally popular Jain mantras, and told her
to couple the mantra with a nine-by-nine fast: nine consecutive days of an Ayambil fast, twice a
year, for four and a half years. Maynasundari and Shripal agreed to undertake the fasts together,
and, at the conclusion of the fasts, Maynasundari goes to do a siddchakaran pujan (ritual
worship). Maynasundari takes the water from the pujan and sprinkles it over Shripal to cure him
