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NARRATIVE TALE IN JAIN LITERATURE
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SOME APHORISMS FROM THE UTTARĀDHYAYANA Some aphorisms from the Uttarādhyayana on karma and sin:
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"As the burglar caught in the breach of the wall, perishes by the work the sinner himself had executed, thus people in this life and the next cannot escape the effect of their own actions."
"As a charioteer, who against his better judgment leaves the smooth highway and gets on a rugged road, repents when the axle breaks; so the fool, who transgresses the Law and embraces unrighteousness, repents in the hour of death, like (the charioteer) over the broken axle.' . "11
"Three merchants set out on their travels, each with his capital, one of them gained there much, the second returned with his capital, and the third merchant came home after having lost his capital. This parable is taken from common life; learn (to apply it) to the Law.
"The capital is human life, the gain is heaven; through the loss of that capital man must be born as a denizen of hell or a brute animal. 12
"And if somebody should give the whole earth to one man, he would not have enough; so difficult is it to satisfy anybody.
"The more you get, the more you want; your desires increase with your means. Though two māṣas13 would do to supply your want, still you would scarcely think ten millions sufficient.
11. IV, 3; V, 14f. Translated by Jacobi in SBE, Vol. 45, pp. 18, 22.
Jain Education International
12. VII, 14-16. Translated by Jacobi in SBE, Vol. 45, p. 29. Cf. Matth. 25, 14; Luke 19, 11; Jacobi, 1.c., p. xlii, who calls attention to the fact that the agreement with the Hebrew gospel (s. Neutestamentliche Apokryphen, published by E. Hennecke, p. 20) is still more striking: Edmunds, Buddhist and Christian Gospels, II, 268ff.; Garbe, Indien und das Christentum, p. 42 ff.; and Hertel in "Geist des Ostens" 1, 1913, 247 f.
13. Small coins. Cf. Yayati's saying, above, I, 380.
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