Jinamanjari 2001 09 No 24

Author(s): Jinamanjari
Publisher: Canada Bramhi Jain Society Publication

Page 64

developed a taste for snake's flesh and discovered the serpent while digging up ant-hills with his homs. He at once started to devour the reptile but the hoarse sound emanating from his throat, gorged with snake's flesh, awakened a hyena asleep in a neighboring grove of trees and the stag in turn became the hyena's prey.
c) Yaşodhara was then reborn as a huge fish and Candramati as a crocodile in the nearby Siprā river. One day during the water-sports of the women of Ujjain in the river, a maid of the royal household was seized by the crocodile. Yaşomati, in anger, ordered the fishermen to destroy all dangerous animals in the river. They at once got into all kinds of fishing craft; and in the course of the operation the crocodile was pierced in the throat by a spear, and along with the fish, caught in a net. Both of them were brought ashore and ordered by the king to be given over to the cook of a hospice for Brāhmins. Everyday slices from their bodies were cooked and served to the inmates until, after prolonged suffering, they both expired.
d) After this Yaşodhara and Candramati were reborn as a pair of goats in a herd of sheep in a village near Ujjain One day, while the male billy-goat (Yaşodhara) was mating with the she-goat, the herd got scared and the leader of the rams attacked the billy-goat with his horns. The goat died, but was reborn in the womb of the she-goat. Soon after Yaşomati came there on a hunting expedition, accompanied by a large number of hunters. However, unable to kill any game in the woods, he returned. Feeling angry and disgruntled, and while passing through the herd, he hit the she-goat (Candramati) with an arrow, whereupon he ripped open her belly and found the kid in its womb.
The young goat was entrusted to the care of the chief cook, and passed a few months in the royal kitchen. There he saw Amrtamati (his former wife) teaching the cooks how to roast meat. She had been stricken with leprosy as a consequence of her sins, and her loathsome body emitted so foul a smell that the attendants had to go about covering their noses. Besides, the maids used to point at her mockingly and tell passers-by how she had administered poison to her
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