________________
168
Traverses on less trodden path...
and Mahabharata, 41 in the Ramayana itself, it is said that Rāna, along with hundreds of his subjects drowned in the water of Sarayu. - 3
Self-immolation by fire. or water or by falling headlong from a cliff ( bhrgupatana) at Amarakamtaka is highly extoled. It is said that, he who throws himself down from the peak of Amarakanțaka, never returns to mundane world (samsära)* 3 These wethods of self-immolation are considered as means of salvation. Mahaprasthana is another kind of self-immolation approved by ancient authorities as a means of release from the miseries of the world. Mahabharata states that one who bas realised the transitorines3 of life should end it in the Himalaya. 44 It is further said that if a man, knowing the Vedānta and understanding the ephemeral nature of life, abandons life in the holy Himalaya by fasting he would reach the world of Brahman.'43 According to Mahabharata the Pāņdava brethren and their wife Draupadi followed this path of Mahāprasthāna.4 C
We get many instances of self-im nolation from ancient literature and epigraphic records. In the Mịcchakațika (Gupta period, 5th century AD) it is said that, king Sūdraka entered fire. 47 nalidasa in his Raghuvamsa (5th century A.D.) tells us that king Aja, in his old age, resorted to fasting (pra yapavesuna) and drowned himself at the confluence of the holy rivers-the Ganga and the Sarayu.48 Kumaragupta (554 A.D.), the later Gupta Emperor, is also said to have entered tire of a dried cowdung cakes, This kind of death is regarded as most meritorious in the Puranus, 8 0
In the mediaeval age, the position was more or less the same as in ancieat times. From Ain-e-Akbari we learn that death by starving, entering self-lit fire, burtying one self in snow, and death by drawning
41. Mahābhārata, Salyaparva, 39, 33-34. 42. Rāmāyana, Uttarakända, Sargas 109-110), pp. 1095-91. 43. Tirthavivecangkānda of Kit yakalpataru (TK), ed. Laksmihara Bhatta, K. V.
Rangaswami Aiyangar, Pub. Anandasrama Press, Poona, 1944, p. 2; Matsyapurana,
pub. Nandlal Mor, Calcutta, 1954, adhyāya 18), verses 28-36, 44. Mahabharata, Svargarohanaparva, 45. Ibid, Anu'sasanaparva 25, 63-64. 46. Ibid, Svargarohanaparva. 47. Mrochakatikam, pub. Chowkhamba Sanskrit Series, varanasi, Samvat 2011; 1-4,
pp. 5-6. 48. Raghuvamsam, VIII-94-95. 49. History of Suicide in India, p. 96. 50. Ibid. p. 91.
Jain Education International
For Private & Personal Use Only
www.jainelibrary.org
