Trishasti Shalaka Purusa Caritra Part 1

Author(s): Hemchandracharya, Helen M Johnson
Publisher: Oriental Research Institute Vadodra

Page 116

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also give unequaled light. The Suciträngas produce variegated wreaths; Citrarasas, like cooks, produce many kinds of food. Manyangas bestow ornaments at will; Gehākāras fine houses, instantly, like a city of the Gandharvas. With uninterrupted desire the Anagnas give clothes. Each of these give many other objects also. Then the ground is sweet like sugar, and the waters in the rivers, etc., are unexcelled by the sweetness of nectar. As that spoke passes, the joints, etc., and the powers of the kalpa-trees deteriorate very, very slowly.
In the second spoke, mortals live for two palyas, are four miles tall, and eat every third day. The powers of the wishing-trees are somewhat less; the waters and the ground-sugar are somewhat deficient in sweetness. In this spoke too, in course of time, as in the former one, abundance gradually decreases, like the size of an elephant's trunk. In the third spoke, men live for one palya, are two miles tall, and eat every second day. And in this spoke, as before, body, age, sweetness of the ground, and power of the wishing-trees become still less. In the fourth spoke lacking former power, men live for a crore of purvas, five hundred bows tall. In the fifth, they live for one hundred years and are ten and a half feet tall; but in the sixth they live for sixteen years and are one foot and a half high, filled with pure sorrow. In utsarpiņi also men must be known to be such (as in avasarpiņi) in the six spokes in reverse order.
From being born at the end of the third spoke, the twins were nine hundred bows tall; they lived for the tenth part of a palya; their bodies had mortise-collar-andpin joints, and they were provided with a perfectly symmetrical form. The man-twin with a complexion the color of pure gold together with his wife, the color of the priyangu,1 had the beautiful appearance of Sumeru with a mass of clouds. In the same place, because of the deceit
134 139. I.e., dark.