________________
35
Leirg informed of this at day-break the king arrived at the spot and took up the babe in his hards, when, instantly, the following verse slipped out of the latter's mouth:
यो मे गर्भस्थितस्याऽपि
वृत्तिं कल्पितवान् पयः । शेषवृत्तिविधानाय
The ST EAS441 27: 11* "Is He, who had managed for my subsistence even before my birth by creating mother's milk, asleep or dead row that it is time to manage for my further maintenance ?!”
The king adopted the boy as his son, named him Śripuñja and enthroncd him at the appropriate time.
This king Sripuñja begot a monkey-faced daughter named Srimātā, who, one day, on hearing songs eulogizing mt. Arbud mt. A bu), recollected her past birth, and, being pressed by her father, she told him that in the previous birth she was a female monkey who jumped upon the top of a peak of the mountain over the lake called Kayakunda, curious to see an attractive scene, when, bitten by a snake from the bamboo-groves, she expired. In due course her body dropped down into the Kāyākunda but the head still remained hargirg in the bamboo-grove over the lake; that was why she did not have a human head.
The king made an enquiry and caused the head be thrown down in the lake and forth with the princess' head turned human.
All the same de ermined not to marry, she set out for pilgrimage and finally settled on the same mountain practising penance, in course whereof Rasiya ka, a nerdicant, was stupefied by her. After death Srimātā became the tutelary deity of the mountain.
10. THE STORY OF GĀLĀ SRI VARDDHAMĀNASORI
King Bfha spati Rāņa ką was ruling over Vāma nasthali, the miniature Kaś mira, where lived the pontiff Varddha mâna
* This verse is found in Särngadharapaddhati as no. 312 with slight vari. ants. Also found in Subhāşitaratnabhändägära as verse 4 on p. 75 in the section on Santoşaprašamsă and PPS .P. 84. verse 270.
Jain Education International
For Private & Personal Use Only
www.jainelibrary.org
