Kathakoca or Treasury of Stories

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

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having become a perfectly-instructed monk, he roamed about in accordance with the standard of solitary roaming.* After performing the abstinence of the sixth meal,t and of the eighth day, he wandered about to obtain food, and once he was presented, through an error, with millet and rice. That bad food gave him seven diseases--dry itch, fever, asthma, cough, and rice-complexion, $ pain in the eyes, and pain in the stomach. All these seven diseases were very severe. For seven hundred years the kingly hermit bore the torture of these seven diseases, and did not use any remedies against them. One day he was praised by Indra before all his court. Accordingly, two gods assumed the form of physicians, and came to test the hermit. They bowed before the royal sage, and said :
We are physicians that heal the body.' The hermit said: 'I do not try to get my external diseases healed, but the diseases of my internal part.' The physicians said : We know nothing about that; (we only heal the body].'ll The hermit said: 'I also know how to cure that;' and rubbing with his spittle a finger that had fallen away, he restored it. The gods praised him, and returned to their own place. After completing such self-mortification, the royal hermit went to the third heaven of the gods. Here ends the story of the royal hermit Sanatkumára, having reference to mortification.
Then follows, by way of illustration, the story of Amarachandra, having reference to meditation.
Meditation is the purifier of the whole world ; It will be found to destroy the series of successive births; Meditation is indeed dear to the wise, Consuming the aggregate of all evil.
* This seems to be the eleventh standard. See Dr. Hoernle's Uvásaga Dasáo,' appendix iii., p. 43.
† Dr. Hoernle shows that this means fasting for two days and a half at a time (Uvásaga Dasáo,' note 141).
I See Dr. Hoernle's translation of the Uvásaga Dasáo,' appendix iii., p. 39.
Annaruchi in the Sanskrit. Jacobi's Prakrit gives bhattacchando.
I have inserted the words in brackets, as they seem to be required to make sense.