Studies in the Bhagavati Sutra

Author(s): J C Sikdar
Publisher: Research Institute of Prakrit Jainology & Ahimsa Mujjaffarpur

Page 218

Sec. III)
STUDIES IN THE BAHGAWATI SŪTRA
193
Then the parents married their son with the best girl' belonging to the family of their equal status and placed him in the household affairs by providing him with all necessaries for the second stage of his life marked by the marriage, as it is found in the case of the prince, Mahābula of Hastināpura?.
So the sweet and happy relation between the parents and the son was based on their reciprocal love, natural duties, and moral obligations called upon by the secular life.
The Bhs presents a vivid picture of the outpourings of the mother's spontaneous love for her son in a scene laid at Ksatriyakundagrāma.
It is stated here that when the prince, Jamālī, being frightened by the worldly fear, birth, old age and death, expressed his desire to his parents to undertake the state of houselessness from that of houseness with their permission, his mother, having heard this unwelcome, uncharming and unheard request of her dear son began to perspire, became pale, then swooned and fell down at once on the ground. She was very quickly brought to consciousness by her attendants through sprinkling cold water over her eyes and fanning (air) with a palm-leaf fan
Then she, being consoled by them, tried to persuade her son to give up his resolution of undertaking the state of houselessness and told him, weeping and lamenting thus "you are, son, our only son", "we do not like your separation for a moment even, stay so long, son, we live, then later on, with our death, being old in the affairs of the increasing family.thread (tantu), desireless and initiated in the presence of Lord Mahāvīra, undertake the state of houselessness from that of houseness."4
In this connection a great religious discussion took place between the prince, Jamāli and his parents in the form of arguments and counter-arguments on the futility and transitoriness of this worldly life and its material enjoyments. But the prince carried his points with his unanswerable arguments and convinced his parents of the validity of his reasons.
i Bhs, 11, 11, 430.
25
? 10, 11, 11, 430.
8.4 16, 9, 33, 384.