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HARIBHADRA, JAINISM AND YOGA
Shantilal M. Desai
A young erudite Pandit was passing by a Jain Mandir in Citrakut. Suddenly, he heard an uproar that a mad elephant was fast approaching. There was no way to run away except to enter the Jain Mandir nearby. He at once remembered the well-known proverb that no Hindu should enter a Jain temple even if beaten by a wild elephant! The Pandit smited for a while and at once entered the Jain temple and saved himself. On entering the temple he saw idols of Jain Tirthankars and he cut jokes and made ironical remarks about them. Probably he could not reconcile the worship of Tirthankars with the Jain concept of Godlessness. What he could not grasp then, he was to understand soon by an irony of fate. Next day when he was passing by the same Jain "temple at night he heard an old Yākini reciting a Gathā. The tone and melody of the recital was so clear that the Pandit at once stopped outside the temple or upā. śraya and heard the Gathā to the end. He could not grasp the full meaning of the prayer. He at once entered the temple and going before the old Yakini fell before her feet and requested her to explain the meaning of the Gatha she had just recited.
"Who are you, my son,” inquired the Yakini. "I am a priest of the King Jitāri. I have vowed that I should become the pupil of him or her whose sayings I do not understand. I do not understand fully the Gatha you just recited. To fulfil my vow kindly accept me as your disciple."
The Yakini was surprised to see a royal priest requesting her to become his Guru. She was a wise and experiencd aspirant in spiritual life. She responded very amicably and addressed the Pandit thus : "I can accept you as my son but I cannot make you my disciple."
And thus Pandit Haribhadra made Yākini Mahattarā his religious mnother in the last phase of the eighth century, more than a thousand years ago. Thus his adventure in conciousness began and his spiritual romance started.
Yakini Mahattarā soon took him to Jinbbattasuri, a well-known Jain Guru then. The Jain Guru made it quite clear to the Pandit that he could accept him as his disciple only if he embraced Jainism. The Pandit who laughed at the Jain idols a few days back, readily turned himself into a
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