Kathakoca or Treasury of Stories

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

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observed a vow, and became a god in the pránata kalpa,* and how he fell from that position and became King Nami. So he placed his son on the throne and took a vow. The goddess that executes the orders of the Jina t gave him the dress of a monk, and he went out of the city. Indra determined to tempt him. He put on the appearance of a Bráhman, and came where he was. He stood before him, and spoke as follows : King, show compassion to living creatures. This city, without you, laments for that it is deprived of. its ruler; this is not as it should be.' The hermit answered : ‘Mankind receive the fruit of their own individual actions; so I attend to my own business. What is the use of troubling my head about other matters ?' The Bráhman said: “The city of Mithilá is in flames.' The hermit answered :
* In the burning of the city of Mithilá nothing of mine burns.'
The Bráhman said : Set up a rampart round the city.' The hermit said : Round the city of self-control I have set up the rampart of quietism, and mounted on it the engine of prudence.'
When Indra found that the hermit was no wise influenced, though plied with many speeches of this kind, he appeared in his true shape, bowed before him, and said :
That family is praised whose virtue is ever undisturbed, O hermit, And thou who like a lotus-bud shalt never be defiled with the mud
of infatuation.'
After the god Indra had praised the hermit in these words, and honoured him by circumambulating him three times, he flew up into the heaven, with his jewelled bracelets flashing.
Having thus rigidly observed his vow, Nami went to blessedness; and Madanarekhá also, having observed the
* The tenth world of the gods. Jacobi’s translation of the Kalpa Sútra,' p. 271.
+ Weber (* Ueber das Çatrunjaya Mahátmyam,' p. 43) informs us that each Jina has his nadeví, or goddess that executes his orders.