Treasury of Jain Tales

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

Page 85

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and every thing else like a straw and renounced the world in the presence of the teacher Suvrata. He practised austerity in a severe manner by fasting foi one day and a half, for two days and a half, for three days and a half and mortified himself by starving to death. He finally went to the Sanatkumāra heaven. When his time there was up, he was born into this world in the family of a merchant in Ratnapura. He was called Jinadharma and from his childhood itself he was devoted to the teachings of the Jinas and discharged the twelve-fold duties of a lay disciple and sought real delight in the worship of the Jinas.
Nāgadatta in the meantime died a miserable death and wandered through many animal births and was born in the town of Simhapura as a Brahmin's son. He was called Agnisarma, In the course of time he took the vow of a three-staved ascetic and practised severe penances in the form of long fasts. Once he happened to be in the city of Ratnapura and the king of the town invited this great ascetic to his palace. The king was once celebrating the breaking of the fast of the ascetic Agnisarmā. By sheer coincidence the lay disciple Jinadharma came there but when Agnisarmă saw him, he was filled with hatred which had its roots in the earlier births. Accordingly he said to the king that if he were to eat in the palace to break his fast, he would eat hot rice boiled in milk from a dish placed on the great merchant's back. The king could not understand this strange demand. He offered to cook the rice on the back of any other man but Agnisarma was both adamant and furious. He declared that he would not eat it any other way. The king was at a loss to know how to appease the Brahmin ascetic till the great merchant, the lay disciple Jinadharma offered to accept the burning dish on his back. He knew that the strange demand of the ascetic was the fruit of a wicked action done in a former existence. When the meal was over, the dish which was stuck to his back was wrenched along with blood, sinews, flesh and fat. He however continued to pursue his religious discipline with composure and in course of time took monk's orders, left the city and went to a mountain peak. In the practice of his penances he abstained from food and remained for half a month in the Kiyotsarga posture in the east and similarly in the south, west and