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NARRATIVE TALE IN JAIN LITERATURE
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“Virtueless" is transformed into “Rich-in-Virtues." He is now desirous of making this wondrous remedy available to others too, but as the people who had previously known him, do not want to listen to him, "True Insight" advises him to place the three remedies in a wooden bowl and place it in the courtyard of the royal palace, so that everyone may help himself. In the concluding verses of Book I the explanation of the allegory is then given : The city "Without-beginning-and-without-end" is Samsāra. The beggar "Virtueless" is the poet himself. The King “Standfirm" is the Jina, his palace is the Jaina religion. The cook "Awakener-of-the-knowledge-of-religion" is "the Master who awakened me, and his daughter is the great pity which he extended towards me."25 Knowledge is the eye-salve, the true faith is the salutary lotion, and the good life is the best diet. It is “True Insight" which allows one to find the path to virtue, and the wooden bowl with the food, the lotion and the eye-salve is the following story.
There is a city "Way-of-man", which has been in existence since all eternity, and in which, as in the narrative of Samarāditya, 26 many events take place. In this city there reigns the mighty king “Maturing-of-deeds" (Karmapariņāma),27 a ruler of unlimited powers, who mercilessly inflicts severe punishments. For his own entertainment he has the beings who act the drama of the world-wandering, wearing the most diverse masks. He makes them scream as denizens of hell, dance before him in agonies of pain, act the parts of crows, cats, mice, lions, elephants, buffaloes, lice, ants, and other large and small animals of all kinds: whilst others again are compelled to act human rôles, such as hunchbacks and dwarfs. dumb and blind men, old men and invalids, the unfortunate, persons separated from their dear ones, poverty-stricken
25. As the poet himself says in the Praśanti, this refers to the
master Haribhadra. 26. An allusion to Haribhadra's Samarāicca Kahā. I cannot help
confessing that, after all this, I find it very difficult to believe that Haribhadra should not have been really Sidharsi's
teacher. 27. The law that every deed must have its consequences.
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