Story Of Rama In Jain Literature

Author(s): V M Kulkarni
Publisher: Saraswati Pustak Bhandar

Page 65

Pauma-Cariya of Vimala Sari
CANTO III :
Canto Cill narrates the previous births of Rāma, Laksmana, Sitā, Rāvana, Vibhișana, Sigriva and Vālin through the monk Sakalabhūşına.
In a town there are two merchant-sons, Dhanadatta and Vasudatta. A Brahmin called Yājña alkya is their friend. In the same town there is a merchant Sagaradatta ard his wife is Ratnaprabhā. She gives birth to a son called 'Guna' and a daughter named 'Gunamati'. She is, by her father, betrothed to Dhanadatta but her mother, grcedy of wealth, secretly offers her to a merchant-prince by name Srikānta. Know ing this Yajñavalkya conveys the news to his friend Vasudatta. He gets enraged, attacks the merchant-prince and in the duel both kill each other. After death they are born as deer. Dhanadatta owing to the death of his brother and loss of Guna. mati wanders from one country to another, Gunamati after death is born as a female deer. The two deers kill each other on her account. Dhanadatta in course of his wanderings mects a monk; owing to his sermon he becomes a Sjāvaka; after death he is born as a goj. Descending from there he is born as Jinapadma-ruci in a town called Malapura. Once he teaches an old bull the Pañca-Namaskara formula. The soul of that bull is born as Vrşabha-dhvaja the son of the king of Mahapura He cleverly manages to find out his benefactor in the past birth and the two, possessed of great glory, become pious S:āvakas. After death they are born as gods. The soul of Dhanadatta descends and is reborn as Nayanānanda, a Vidyadhara prince. He becomes a monk, after death is born as a god. Descending he is born as prince S:icandra. He enters the ascetic order, dies and is born as Indra in Brahmaloka. Descending now he is born as Rāma, the son of Daśaratha.
Now we turn to Vasudatta and Srikānta, the merchant prince. In Mrnālakunda there was a prince 'Vajra-kañcu' and his wife Hemavati Tl at Śsikānta is born as Svayambhū of her. That Gunamati, passing through many births is born as Vegavati of a Purobita devoted to Jina-Dharma. This Vega ali once holds up a monk to ridicule but her father checks her. She becomes a Srāvikā The prince Svayambhū is enamoured of her. Her father, however, declares that he won't offer his daughter to a prince of wrong faith. Svayambhū is enraged, kills him, forcibly kidnaps Vegavati and rapes her. Vegavati solemnly says : 'In the next birth I will be the cause of your death since you killed my father and have raped me'. She then enters the ascetic order. She after her death was born as a god and now in the present birth she is born as Sita. Svayambhū after his death wanders in hells, then is born as Prabhāsakunda, a Brahmin boy and later becomes a monk. Seeing the glory of Kanakaprabha, the lord of Vidyadharas, he entertains a (remunerative) desire that by virtue of his austerities he should be able to enjoy in a future birth the glory and prosperity of the chief of Vidyadharas. After death he was born as a god in Sanat-kumāra heaven and descending from there he was now born as Rāvana. That Vasudatta (w:10 was later on born as Sribhūti, as Bhamandala, that Yājňavalkya as Vibhişına, and Vrşabha-dhvaja as Sugti a.