Notes on Modern Jainism

Author(s): Mrs Sinclair Stevenson
Publisher: Oxford

Page 92

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MODERN JAINISM.
them as garments. On the fourth day after their birth they were able to eat as much food as was equal to a grain of corn in size; they never ate a larger meal throughout their lives, and this meal they only took every fourth day. They never had to cook their food, but the desire-fulfilling tree, the Kalpa Vșiksa ($64 ga), served their need. The parents died as soon as the children were forty-nine days old, and the children lived lives of such innocence that they did not even know what a dwelling place, a cooking utensil, cooked food, or religion were, and at their death this innocence took them to Devaloka.
(2) Susama. Happy twins were born in this period too, the differences being that they could eat on the third day after their birth, and continued to eat, every third day of their lives, a meal equal in size to a Bora (912), or jujube fruit, and the parents lived till their children were sixtyfour days old. These twins, like the previous ones, went straight to Devaloka at death.
(3) Susama Dusama. The twins that are born in this period eat every second day a meal the size of an A'malā (2414011) fruit, and their parents live till their children are seventy-nine days old.
The first Jaina Tirtharkara, Risabhadeva, took birth in the latter part of this period and taught the twins the - seventy-two useful arts ( i. e. cooking, sewing, pottery, carpentry, &c.). After this the happy times ceased, the desire-fulfilling trees disappeared, and fortunate twins were no longer born. Risabhadeva also introduced politics and established a kingdom, and taught his daughters letters and the art of writing. Rişabhadeva's elder daughter, Brāhmi, is the Jaina patron of learning.