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NITRODUOTION.
main story it assumes a poouliar form which may bo donignated aus nidāna. This word is originally a medical term ? which Haribhadra (p. 481, 1. 3) explains as the disorder of the dhātus caused by unsalutary régime; metaphorically it means 'bad karma,' especially such as effects the moral constitution of the jīva, causing as it were a disease of it, which may last for a gspat number of births and has the most serious consequences for the individual thus infected. In the main story Agnisarman acquires the nidāna by his intense hatuwd of Guņarena and his ardent desire of revenge (ārtadhyāna); this hate reappears unabated and without other cause in his later birthę whenever he comes into connexion with the person in whom the soul of Gungsena is for the time incorporated. Here the hereditary vice is anger (krodha), in Amaragupta's tale of the 2nd Bhava it is deceit (māyā), in Ajita's tale of the 3rd Bhava avarice (lobha), and in the robber's tale of the 4th Bhava untrue speech (orta). Nidāna is occasionally synonymous with karma acquir. od by sins ; if they are not properly repented of, they produce karma which will not be effaced, though the person in question afterwards leads a most meritorious life even as & monk or a nun. The severity of the punishment induced by such .karma may appear quite out of proportion to the nature of the sin which occasioned it;.e.g., when for angry words which passed between a mother and her son, he is impaled in a later birth, and she has her hands cut off by a robber (7th Bhava, story of Candra and Sarga); of when a prince who had beheaded and eaten a cook made of pasto is, for this transgression, several times reborn, and severely suffers,• as an animal (4th Bhava, Yasodhara's tale). Haribhadra maintains that heavier sihs or crimes are punished by birth es an animal or by suffering in hell which may last many, oceans of years, and compared to which the worst sufferings of human beings are & mero trifle ; on the other hand the reward for good deeds is meted out with an equal liberality by oceans of years in heaven. The Camaráicca Kahā is evi. dently intended to illustrate the evil consequences of vices, sins,
Compare nvidancotiana, a part of the Carakuumhita. For the dogo mation meaning of nidkna soe the note on p. XXX.
