Studies in the Bhagavati Sutra

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

Page 242

Sec. V
STUDIES IN THE BHAGAWATI SŪTRA
217
On being told by his mother to enjoy the wordly life of pleasure with his eight young beautiful wives, the prince advanced the following arguments to cross her plea by showing the futility and transitoriness of the worldly enjoyinents and pleasures thus :
"Human gratifications of sensual desires are impure and non-eternal. Like the discharge or flow of vomitting, bilious fever, phlegm, rheum, semen, blood and passing of cxcreta, urine, etc, they are full of unpleasant ugly urine and excreta, ina uspi. cious inhaling and exhaling of the smell of the dead, short-lived and light natured. They are the causes of pain, hardship, unhappiness, always condemned by the saints, infinite worldly bondages and consequences of bitter fruit (of sinful acts). Like the lightning and pile of grass they are bound by unending sufferings and hindrances to attaining liberation?".
This observation of Jamālī throws a side-light on the position of the women in the family.
But it cannot be generalized from this particular case of this Ksatriya prince, because this canonical work bears ample evidences to show that the married women, like the queen, Prabhāvati Devī, the wife of king Bala", Devānandā, the Brāhmanī of Rşabhadatta", Utpalā, the wife of Sankha Sreşthiż, Revati of Mendhikagrāma", Bhadrā, the wife of Mankhalie and others were regarded by their respective husbands as equal partners in their work and worship.
The picture of the conjugal life of Rşabhadatta and Devānanda?, as already depicted in this chapter, clearly reveals that the wife in a rich aristocratic family held a dignified position as a partner of her husband in the path of his work and worship of life sanctified by the touch of love and bound by the union of their hearts.
1 Bhs, 9, 33, 381.
2 16, 11, 11, 428. 9 16, 9, 33, 380-82.
4 Ib, 12, 1, 438. 6 16, 15, 1, 557. Revai's husband does not appear on the scene,
but her position in the family is determined by her freedom of activity.
6 Ib, 15, 1, 540. 71b, 9, 33, 380-82. 28