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something special about the grains given her if her father in law, a wise man, had asked her to preserve and protect them. She tied them in a neat cloth and put them away in her jewellery-box, put the jewellery-box under her pillow and taking due care to check them three times a day, went about her work as usual.
Rohiņi's Logic -
Then, Dhanya, the merchant called the youngest daughterin-law, Rohini, and gave her the five grains of paddy with the same instructions as he had given to the three elder daughtersin-law. However, she thought that there ought to be some very special reason for the sage father-in-law's instructions and that the best way to preserve and protect and increase the five grains was to multiply them through cultivation.
Thoughts Into Action -
She, then, called the members of her maidenhood family and requested them that they must sow those five grains in the next sowing season and when the crop came, they must collect the produce there from and re-sow them and keep on repeating the process until she asked for the resultant produce. She also asked them to protect the crop by erecting fence around the plots in which they sowed those grains and the produce from the pests by suitable preservation. They did as she bid them to do. In the very first sowing season, her brothers cleaned and prepared a small plot of land and when the rain fell they sowed the five grains given them by their sister. Gradually those grains sprouted and grew into fine plants with glistening and tender green leaves. The brothers transplanted them in proper plots and they grew into paddy plants with dark green leaves and stout stems. Soon, the plants fructified and were laden with paddy ears. On ripening they cut the stems, with ripened yellowed ears, with freshly sharpened sickles and put them away to dry. When the ears dried
326 : JAINISM: THE CREED FOR ALL TIMES
