Book Title: Treasury of Jain Tales
Author(s): V M Kulkarni
Publisher: Shardaben Chimanbhai Educational Research Centre

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Page 179
________________ 124 presented, they renounced the world and became religious mendicants. They were rewarded after their death by being placed in heaven as Indrasāmānika gods. After their period of stay there, they were sent in this world as two princes, Sāgaradeva and Sāgaradatta, sons of queen Samudradattă and king Harisena. Being disillusioned with life they renounced the world under the guidance of the twelfth teacher Drdhasuvrata. On the third day after this, they were killed by a stroke of lightning and went to heaven. After a long stay in heaven they were sent to the earth, one as a son of king Jayasena in the city of Mithilă and the other as a son of Madanarekhã. They should in reality be father and son. The one that came to the earth earlier in the city of Mithilā was given the name of Padmaratha. As he reached the proper age his father, king Jayasena made him the king of Mithilă and renounced the world to follow a religious path. Padmaratha married Puspamālā and spent his time administering his kingdom. The other god was born as the son of Madanarekha. That same day king Padmaratha was carried by his horse into the forest where Madanrekhā's child was born and abandoned. Love sprang up in his heart as it was rooted in their previous life times and he picked up the baby and gave it to his queen. The whole city of Mithilă participated in the celebration to mark the birth festival of the child and the child grew up surrounded by love from every one. As the account of the boys' previous lives was being given, a majestic palace chariot flew in. It indeed was a gorgeously decorated vehicle made of gold and silver and studded with precious stones. A heavenly resident stepped out to do reverence to Madanarekhā. He went round her thrice in the right holy spirit and fell at her feet and then he got up to do similar reverence to the holy man. At this the Vidyadhara protested, he pointed out that the holy saint should have had the precedence over the lady at which the heavenly visitor argued that one's own holy preceptor deserved that honour. He told the whole story of his relations with the lady; he was her former husband Yugabahu who was now enjoying the present privileged position only on account of the discourse his wife had given him at the time of his departure from the earth as a result of which he was now an Indrasāmānika god born in the fifth heaven Jain Education International For Private & Personal Use Only www.jainelibrary.org

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