Narrative Tale in Jain Literature

Author(s): Satyaranjan Banerjee
Publisher: Asiatic Society

Page 76

NARRATIVE TALE IN JAIN LITERATURE
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looks; it was of a lustre like a mass of heaped up collyrium; it had eyes red and bloodshot, and a double tipped tongue quickly moving to and fro; it looked, in blackness and length, like the single braid of hair of the goddess Earth; and it was dexterous at making its hood to swell large and stiff bending over like a top-knot in an exceedingly beautiful way.
108. The form of such a serpent, making a noise like the blowing of the bellows of a blacksmith, and exhibiting a wrath fierce, intense and unbounded, he assumed, and then went to where Kāmadeva was in his posaha-house; and having gone there, he spoke thus to Kāmadeva, the servant of the Samana : "O ho, Kāmadeva, thou servant of the Samana (as before, 95, down to) if thou dost not interrupt thy religious practices, then I shall even this day, creeping forward, mount on thy body; and having done so, I shall with my hinder part three times encircle thy neck, and then with my sharp venom-bearing fangs I shall strike thee even in thy breast, so that agonised by the intolerable force of thy agonies thou shalt, even before they time, be deprived of thy life."
109. Then that Kāmadeva, the servant of the Samana, being thus spoken to by the deva in the form of the serpent, showed no fear (as above, S 96, down to) remained engaged in the meditation of the Law. (He too spoke, similarly as in $ 97, for a second and a third time; and Kāmadeva too, as above, 98, down to) remained engaged in the meditation of the Law.
110. Then that deva in the form of the serpent, observing that Kamadeva, the servant of the Samana, showed no fear (as above, S 96, down to) remained engaged in the meditation of the Law, grew furious, etc., (as in § 95), and creeping forward mounted on the body of Kāmadeva; and having done so, he encircled his neck three times with his hinder part, and then struck him even in his breast with his sharp venom-bearing fangs.
111. Then that Kāmadeva, the servant of the Samana bore (and so forth, $ 100, down to) that fiery torment with perfect cmposure.
112. Then that deva in the form of the serpent, observing that Kāmadeva, the servant of the Samana,