Life and Stories of Jaina Savior Parcvanatha

Author(s): Maurice Bloomfield
Publisher: Maurice Bloomfield

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Life and Stories of Pārçvanātha
and concert at the court. In the midst of the festivity the door-keeper announces an astrologer who desires an audience. The king is impatient at the disturbance, but the minister points out that the astrologer is more important than the spectacle. The astrologer is then admitted; he is robed in white, and holds a book in his hand. After exchange of courtesies, the astrologer predicts that on that very day a deluge shall arise, turning that city into an ocean (153). At once a vividly described storm and deluge break out, which drive the king and the minister to the seventh story of the palace. After reproaching himself for neglect to attend to his spiritual welfare, the king makes the five-fold obeisance (pañcanamasksti ) in his mind, when, all at once, a ship arrives (168). As he starts to board the ship, lo, there is no water, no cloud, no ship, no thunder. When the king asks the alleged astrologer to explain, he says that he is no astrologer, that he is a magician who has exhibited hocus pocus (indrajāla). The king then draws the moral that life and its attractions are also illusory; happiness, like a candle, sputtering in the wind, is impermanent. He makes over his kingdom to Prince Harivikrama and turns Ascetic (çramaņa) (137-182).
• The seventh story of a palace is a cliché of Hindu fiction. See this text 2. 339; 5. 204; 6. 610, 1118; Jacobi, Ausgewählte Erzählungen, p. 8, 1. 1; p. 48, 1. 33; Kathakoo, pp. 130, 185; Paricistaparvan 2. 874; Jặtakas 62 and 458; Samarādityasamksepa 4. 391; Pascatantra 1. 5; Pancadanda. chatraprabandha 2 (p. 31). For the uses of the higher stories of Hindu palaces, see Weber's and Jacobi's remarks on p. 68, note, of the former's translation of Pañcadandachatraprabandha, Transactions of the Berlin Academy, 1877.
Made in succession to the different grades of Jaina Saints and Teachers; see, e. g. Kalpasūtra 1.