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NARRATIVE TALE IN JAIN LITERATURE
91
... “Now hear the pleasures of Śramaņas which some monks enjoy.
"When a monk breaks the law, dotes (on a woman), and is absorbed by that passion, she afterwards scolds him, lifts her foot, and tramples on his head."...
"But when they have captured him, they send him on all sorts of errands : 'Look (for the bodkin to) carve the bottle-gourd, fetch some nice fruit.
'(Bring) wood to cook the vegetables, or that we may light a fire at night; paint my feet, come and meanwhile rub my back!...
"Reach me the lip-salve, fetch the umbrella and slippers, the knife to cut the string, have my robe dyed bluish!...
"Fetch me the pincers, the comb, the ribbon to bind up the hair, reach me the looking-glass, put the tooth-brush near me"...
...“Pregnant women order their husbands about like slaves to fulfil their craving.
"When a son, the rewarl (of their wedded life), is born, (the mother bids the father) to hold the baby, or to give it to her. Thus some supporters of their sons have to carry burdens like camels.
"Getting up in the night they lull the baby asleep like nurses; and though they are ashamed of themselves, they wash the clothes like washermen"4
IV
MAHĀVĪRA'S MEETING WITH HIS MOTHER In the Bhagavati-sūtra Mahāvīra's meeting with his mother is
described thus :
(The Brahman Usabhadatta and his wife Devānandā went on pilgrimage to Mahāvīra) "Then milk began to flow from the breast of the Brahman woman Devānandā, her eyes filled with tears, her arms swelled beside her bangles, her jacket stretched, the hairs of her body stood erect, as
4. I, 4, 1.9 f.: 2, 1 ff., translated by Jacobi in SBE, Vol. 45, pp.
272 f., 275 ff.
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