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

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Page 234
________________ 177 Marubaka, Damanaka, Kubjaka etc. The Vänavyantara gods who divined the queen's pregnancy desire immediately brought into the palace heaps and heaps of water growing and land growing flowers of a variety of colours and a variety of fragrances. The queen felt satisfied and enjoyed herself on the bed of these flowers. In due course of time, she gave birth to a female child that was destined to be the nineteenth tirthankara. The child was entirely healthy and free from disease. Not only the parents and the people of Mithila celebrated the birth of the child but also the guardian deities of the eight quarters of the world. Since the mother had a pregnancy desire to sleep on the bed made of flowers, let the name of the child be Malli they said. She grew into a matchless beauty, her hair was black, eyes wide and expressive, lips like bimba fruits, and body tender like a beautiful lotus. Her teeth were white and breath was fragrant. When Malli was a young woman, through her avadhi knowledge she came to know of the presence of the six friends she as Mahabala had who were re-born in six different royal families. She ordered a large mandapa with a hundred pillars for its support in the centre of it was a chamber to accommodate a jewelled pedestal. On it she placed her own statue made in gold. Peculiarly enough the statue had a hole on the top of the head, which was covered by a lotus shaped crown. Every day she would drop a morsel of whatever food she ate into the hole with the result that all the rotten food inside emitted a foul smell like that of a dead snake, even more foul than that. At that time, in the city called Saketa in the Kosala country, Pratibuddhi ruled. His queen was Padmavati. Sāketa was known for a temple of a Naga whose worship was considered to be rewarding. On the occasion of the Naga Festival, the queen requested her husband Pratibuddhi to accompany her to the temple for the Naga worship. The king agreed and the queen ordered a large bouquet of five coloured flowers to be brought to the temple. They were also supposed to construct a bower with the same flowers and decorate it with different paintings of swans. deer, peacocks and a variety of other birds and other beasts The Jain Education International For Private & Personal Use Only www.jainelibrary.org

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