Narrative Tale in Jain Literature

Author(s): Satyaranjan Banerjee
Publisher: Asiatic Society

Page 73

NARRATIVE TALE IN JAIN LITERATURE
of mungooses, and a scarf made of serpents; he slapped his hands on his arms, and roared, and laughed aloud in a horrible manner; he was covered with various sorts of hair of five colours; and thus brandishing a large sword, which was sharp as a razor and of the dark blue lustre of a lotus or a buffalo's horn or indigo or the blossom of flax, he went to where Kamadeva, the servant of the Samana, was in his posaha-house; and having gone there, he furiously, angrily, wrathfully, fiercely and savagely spoke thus to Kāmadeva, the servant of the Samana : "O ho, Kāmadeva, thou servant of the Samaņa, who desirest what no one desires, who art marked out for a miserable end, who wast inauspiciously born on a holy chaüddasi day, who art abandoned of propriety, fortune, happiness and renown, who longest after truth, righteousness, heaven and salvation, and hankerest after them, and thirstest after them, truly tell thee, thought it does not become thee, O beloved of the devas, to depart from the practice of the virtues, duties, restraints renunciations, and posaha abstinences, or to swerve from it, or to interrupt it, or to suspend it, or to relinquish it, or to abandon it, yet if thou dost not this day forsake and interrupt thy practice of the virtues and as above, down to) posaha abstinences, then I shall this day, with this sword of dark blue lustre (and so forth, as above), cut thee into small pieces, so that agonished by the intolerable force of thy agonies, O beloved of the devas, thou shalt, even before thy time, be deprived of thy life."
96. Then that Kāmadeva, the servant of the Samana, being thus spoken to by the deva in the form of the pisāya, showed no fear, dread, alarm, agitation, emotion, or perturbation, but remained silent and engaged in the meditation of the Law.
97. Then that deva in the form of the pisāya, observing that Kamadeva, the servant of the Samana, showed no fear (as above & 96, down to) occupied in the meditation of the Law, spoke to him thus for a second and a third time : "O ho, Kamadeva, thou servant of the Samana, who desirest what no one desires, if thou dost not this day (as above, s 95, down to), thou shalt be deprived of thy life."
98. Then that Kamadeva, the servant of the Samana,