Life and Stories of Jaina Savior Parcvanatha

Author(s): Maurice Bloomfield
Publisher: Maurice Bloomfield

Page 19

Introduction
tain. In the mean time Marubhūti becomes despondent, because of the dire retribution he has brought upon his brother. Even tho restrained by King Aravinda, he goes to the forest to conciliate Kamatha. Throwing himself upon his knees, he begs forgiveness, but Kamatha takes up a stone, and with a single blow crushes his brother's head, and, with it, his own sacred vows. While in pain from that mortal blow Marubhūti harbors distressing thoughts (ārtadhyāna). As result, he is reborn as a wild elefant,8 leader of a herd in the Vindhya mountains. Varuņā, Kamatha's wife, blind with fury, also dies, is reborn as a she-elefant, and becomes his mate. Wildly they roam together in the forest.
King Aravinda, living on the pinnacle of worldly pleasures, one day contemplates a great storm. In the manner of a Pratyekabuddha,' he is reminded by the breaking of the clouds of the perishableness of all things in the samsāra, and decides to abandon the world. He takes vows with a teacher, and wanders alone thru towns and villages. In the course of these wanderings he succeeds in converting to the faith of the holy Jina Saints the merchant Sāgaradatta, head of a caravan. Going on his way, Sāgaradatta comes to the spot where the elefant chief (Marubhūti) is in the habit of disporting himself with his females. While he is camping on the banks of a lake, the elefant comes there to drink, and proceeds to attack his caravan, slaying and dispersing. Aravinda's spiritual insight tells him that the time to enlighten the elefant
* Second pre-birth of the Marubhūti soul.
• The meaning of this word is probably enlightened by some particular thing, circumstance, or occurrence,' as is the case each time in the Jain legends about the four kings in Jacobi's Ausgewählte Erzählungen in Måhärästri, pp. 34 ff.; cf. Jätakas 378, 408. The word is rendered otherwise by translators and lexicografers.