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SECOND
INTRODUCTION
They left that place, entered the Dandaka forest and proceeding well in the interior halted under a creeper bower. They now lived the life of real foresters.
Once two monks arrived there. They were duly worshipped and served with the choicest food. As a result of this pious act gods manifested the five miracles.
XV. Sandhi. Episode of Ja tāyin.
Seeing the shower of precious jewels that poured down as a reward for the pious gift of food to monks, the bird Jațāyin present there, remembered his sinful previous existence. Repentant he fell at the feet of the monks. The moment he was sprinkled with the feet-washing water of the monks, his body was transfigured. He got wings of gold and other bodily parts of various jewels. He was adopted as a son by Sitā. At Rāma's request the monks narrated the story of Jațāyin's previous existence. Formerly he was Buddhist king Daņdaka. Impressed by the forbearance and deep knowledge of a Jain monk, he became a Jain convert and once invited a company of five hundred monks to his city. His queen and prince, as staunch Buddhists, conspired variously to incriminate the monks and win back the king to their fold. Once they made the king an eye-witness to a love-scene got up between the queen and a false Jain monk. Taken in by this, Dandaka killed the monks by getting them pressed in a machine. One of the two monks that were accidently saved was so much angry at this ghastly deed that he was burnt to ashes by the fire of his wrath, which also consumed the whole city. The king, queen and prince were reborn in different hells and suffered harrowing tortures. Then through thousands of births, at last the king was reborn as the bird Jaţāyin,
Rama and other took the five vows of the householder. Returning, they found their abode filled with jewels. Lakşmaņa used them in forging a diamond chariot.
XXXVI. Sandhi. Lakşmaņa acquires the magic
sword Sûra hāsa and rejects Candran a khã. Riding in the chariot they proceeded further. The Kraņā was crossed and they came to the Krauñcanadi, where they made a halt. It was autumn then. Lakşmaņa roaming here and there, bow in hind, saw a bamboo thicket and a sword hanging nearby in the air. Taking the sword he tried a stroke at the thicket and there fell before him the thicket along with a severed human head and its trunk. Returning, he narrated the incident to Rāma who could see at once that it was a divine sword and that the incident was a potent source of quarzel
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