Treasury of Jain Tales

Author(s): V M Kulkarni
Publisher: Shardaben Chimanbhai Educational Research Centre

Page 65

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flavour all over the Kadamba forest. Some herdsmen first tasted it and were greatly pleased. Word soon enough reached prince Samba and two other princes about the presence of such a delicious liquor in the caves and they too felt tempted to taste it. It was a very heady drink and they all became so inebriated that their noise disturbed a sage who was living in the woods. They even insulted him and belaboured him till he fell unconscious. Vasudeva and Balarama who came to learn of this unfortunate and irresponsible incident rushed up to pacify the sage and beg of him to forgive their offending friends. But the sage declared his intention to bring about the total destruction of the place to which the hooligans belonged and burn every one of them; not even a dog from the city would escape, he declared; the only exception would be Balarama and his brother Vāsudeva.
In his despondency Vasudeva allowed his wife Rukmini to take to the path of renunciation and become a nun. He advised the other Yadavas also to do likewise,
In the meantime, the sage Dvaipāyana died but was re-born as one of the Agni-kumāras and he waited patiently for twelve years to get the right opportunity to inflict punishment on the city and its inhabitants. When he got it he first produced a tempestuous wind and collected in the city all the inflammable material like grass, dry leaves, dried branches of trees etc. He also produced a spark and a big fire blazed. With heart-rending cries men, women, children, beasts, birds and other living creatures fell into the holocaust. Vasudeva and Balarama tried to rescue their parents whom they wanted to drive in a chariot out of the city and when they came to the gate they saw that they could not get out. Dvaipāyana reminded them of his terrible curse that not even a dog will escape except the two of them. So they left the city burning and wandered off in a forest. Their city with several million families was reduced to ashes and the waters of the ocean rose to swallow up every thing. The words of the angry sage came to be true and so did the words of Aristanemi.
The two brothers went into a dense forest as they were planning to reach Mathura, the city of the Pandavas. As they were