Kathakoca or Treasury of Stories

Author(s): C H Tawney
Publisher: Oriental Books Reprint Corporation New Delhi

Page 31

whole grain, calling to mind at the same time the spell containing the name of him who is free from passion. This having been done, the elephant will move like a real elephant, and all men, beholding thy marvellous power, will show thee reverence.' Devapála received with due attention this speech of the attendant demon, and went to his palace. There he had a clay elephant made, he mounted it, and uttering the name of the Jina, propitiated it with whole grain, whereupon it became alive. Then all the people looked upon the king with admiration, and respected him, so that he enjoyed unopposed sovereignty. Then one day it happened that the king with his retinue went to the house of that merchant named Jinadása. Thereupon the merchant presented him with a golden vessel full of jewels :
Everyone is ready to confer a benefit on him who merits benefits; But seldom does a mother give birth to one who does good to the
undeserving.
The king was pleased, and made the merchant keeper of the great seal. He then continued to govern his realm without anxiety. At length the king had erected in the middle of the city a gigantic temple of the Jina, towering aloft like a mountain. In it he had set up that very image of the Jina, and the king with his wives went day and night to the temple and worshipped him who is free from passion with sweet-smelling things, such as aloes, camphor, candalwood, and fragrant flowers. One day, as the king with his wives was approaching the temple of the Jina, they were met by & kúpálika carrying a bundle of wood on his head. The queen, as, soon as she saw that kápálika thus employed, fainted. She remembered her former birth, and, being thereby deprived of her senses, she repeated over and over again the following verse : The water went to the river from the forest, but you were not con
verted; Alas! you became a kúpálika, so that even now such is your state. Then the queen's trance was dispelled. The king said :