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Study af Civakacintamani
encounter with the ascetic Vardhamāna is omitted in the Cc. Even the incident of the fighting monkeys is different. According to the Up., Civakan feels disgusted with the world when he saw the group of monkeys fighting. In the Cc. this incident is narrated as a small episode. According to the Co., Civakan watched two monkeys and saw the male monkey giving a jack fruit to the sulky female monkey, out of love. At that moment the watchman of the garden came there and snatched the jack fruit from them. This incident made Civakan realise the state of this world. He thought that the monkeys and the watchman were celestials who showed him the impermanence of this world and wanted to guide him to salvation.1
(ii) In the Up., a wandering ascetic called Prasastavanka (cāraṇa) told Civakan about his previous birth as he had already heard from the celestial (khechara).9 In the Cc. Civakan heard about his previous birth for the first time from the wandering ascetic (cāraṇa) Maụivannan in the temple of Arhat, where he went with his wives after being disgusted with the world.3 The story of the previous birth of Jivandhara related in the Up. is found in a slightly different form in the Cc.
In the Up., Jivandhara was born in Videha as Jayadratha the son of king Jayandhara and queen Jayavati. One day, Jayadratha separated a young swan from its parents out of curiosity. When the father of the young swan, on seeing his son being taken away, shrieked repeatedly, a servant of Jayadratha killed the parent-swan with his arrow. Jayadratha took the swan home. His mother saw it and asked her son to reunite the young swan with its mother, Jayadratha realised his fault, and reunited the young swan with its mother, after having kept it for sixteen days. After that Jayadratha having enjoyed worldly pleasures for some time, renounced the world and became a god in Sahasrāra. 4 Then, when his heavenly enjoyments had come to an end, he was reborn in this world as Jivandhara. The father of the young swan which had been killed by the servant of Jayadratha waz reborn as Kāşthāngāraka, who killed the father of Jivandhara. Since Jivandhara had separated the young swan from its mother for sixteen days, in this life he was separated from his mother for sixteen years.
The following variations are found in the Cc. in the above story of the previous birth of Jivandhara related in the Up..
(a) In the Cc., Acotaran separated the young swap at the request of his wives. The young swan was brought up by the wives of Acötaran. It was the father of Acītaran who asked him to reunite the young swan with its parents, and not his mother as in the Up. In this context, Tēvar has taken the opportunity to expound the importance of the five vows of a householder, non-killing, non-stealing, truth, celibacy, and non-possession.
1 Cc. vv. 2720-2729. 2 Up, loc. cit, vy. 533-548. 3 Cc. vv. 2856-2890. 4 Sahasrara is the twelfth of the sixteen heavens which are the parts of Kalpa. Kalpa and
Kalpatita are the two parts of the upper world.
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