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

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Page 198
________________ 141 He started stripping himself of all his jewellery and royal garments. He ordered the elephant to stop. He got off and quickly strode his way towards Mount Raivataka. He had already become a monk in his mind. His brother Rathanemi would not forget the bewitching beauty of Rajimati. She had made a firm decision to enter a religious order. She was greatly upset by the fact that the man she had fixed her mind on as her husband had discarded her. She would not give up her idea of becoming a nun and a disciple of the great teacher. But Rathanemi would not leave her alone, though on one occasion she had spoken pretty brusquely to him. Even then he persisted. Then she called him to her room. She got some porridge made, added ghee and honey in a generous measure to it and in front of him gulped it. He didn't know what she could be meaning by it. She had an emitic concealed in her mouth and quickly she threw up all the porridge in a golden bowl. She held it in front of Rathanemi and asked him to eat it up. He was shocked. He protested, even a village idiot would not like to touch what has been vomitted. How could she expect him to drink it? She replied that all along he had been desiring to eat up what his brother had vomitted. She has been discarded by him and to desire her almost amounted to desiring his vomit. Rathanemi felt disgust for all this physical world. He said, like her, he too would enter a religious order. And he really did. Rājimati's trick seemed to have worked at least for sometime. It so happened that Rājimati as a nun wanted to go to the Raivataka mountain to fall at the feet of the great monk Ariṣṭanemi. She travelled towards the mountain in a group of other nuns. On their way they were caught in a heavy torrent of rain. Before they could find any shelter they were drenched to the skin. Rajimati entered a cave just as the light was failing. Her other companions found similar shelter elsewhere. Rājimati found herself alone in the cave, she felt easy enough about removing all her clothes and spreading them out for drying. But Rathanemi was already there and she had not seen him at all. He looked at her shapely body so gloriously exposed to his eyes, her smooth skin and charming complexion Jain Education International For Private & Personal Use Only www.jainelibrary.org

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