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INTRODUCTION
61
as (v) Svayambhudeva (pp. 256.26 f.) who had to leave home and wander about for a prosperous living. He reached Campa, but had to rest at night on a Tamala tree. He saw two traders who significantly buried under that tree some treasure and went away. Svayambhudeva found, to his good luck, five jewels there; he took them and started home. On the way he rested on a banyan tree. There he heard a touching conversation between a bird and its father, mother, wife etc. The bird succeeded in taking their permission to die fasting in order to escape from hell, as instructed by Mahāvīra. This conversation was a lesson for him; and it opened his eye that it was not proper for him to pick up jewels like that and live on them. Being thus enlightened, he accepted renunciation in the samavasaraṇa of Mahāvīra, practised penances, submitted himself to samlekhanā-maraṇa, became duly an Antakṛt-kevalin and thus attained liberation (§§ 416-19, also § 426).
[II]
Priyamkara and (i) Sundarī, of Saketa, were a wedded couple, highly attached to each other. They would not tolerate separation even for a moment. As ill-luck would have it, Priyamkara fell ill and died. Sundari could hardly accept the fact of his death. She would not agree to the cremation of her beloved's body which she closely guarded. None could convince her. Her father was helpless and appealed to king Madana for some way out. Prince Ananga (i.e., Mahāvīra himself in one of his earlier lives) took this responsibility on himself. He picked up a dead body of a woman, claiming her to be his wife, and behaved exactly like Sundari. So they had a common cause and some understanding between them. At last Ananga managed to throw both the dead bodies in a well, and told Sundari that her husband, as feared by them, eloped with his wife. So she was brought round to her senses (§§ 349-54).
Sundari, in due course, was born as Mānabhața, alias Śaktibhața of Ujjainī who inherited the position in the royal Durbar from his grand-father, an eminent Ṭhākūra. One day Manabhața found his seat in the Durbar occupied inadvertently by a Pulinda prince. Vain as he was, he took offence and hit that prince fatally on the chest in spite of the latter's apologetic promise that this would not be repeated. He came out successful in the fray that followed. For safety, he left that place along with his father and lived comfortably in a fortified village. One day, during spring-sports, he happened to sing on the swing complimenting a darkish beloved to the offence of his fair wife who felt humiliated and hanged herself, but was rescued by him in time. He tried to convince her of his bonafides, but without success. His vanity surged up, and he left home in sheer disgust. His wife followed him, and she was followed by his parents. To test her fidelity, he threw a big stone in the well and concealed himself behind a tree. Thinking that he jumped into the well, she threw herself there; his mother and father also did likewise. Manabhața realised that his vanity led to this fatal tragedy of the whole family. He was full of remorse, and, in a penitent mood, started out in search of a preceptor who would purify him. He gathered from a gossip of destitutes in Mathura that a dip in the Ganges would cleanse him of his sin. But in Kauśāmbi, he heard the futility of such practices, adopted four
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