Trishasti Shalaka Purusa Caritra Part 1

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

Page 129

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speedily produced a fire by the two pieces of wood for kindling fire by attrition, they made a sacrifice with the gośirṣa-sandal made into fuel. With the ashes of the fire they made an amulet. For that is the course of devotion to those two, even though they are very powerful. Saying aloud, "May your life be as long as that of a mountain," they struck together stone-balls near the Lord's ears.145 Having placed Marudevi and the Lord on a couch in the lying-in house, they stood singing auspicious songs. Then simultaneously in the heavens, there was the loud sound of the eternal bells, like the sound of musical instruments at the time of a wedding.
At that time the thrones of the Indras, though immovable as mountain-peaks, trembled like hearts from confusion. Then the Lord of Saudharma, his eyes red from a burst of anger, his face knitted in a frown on the broad surface of his forehead, making his lower lip tremble like a flame from the fire of internal anger, taking a deep breath as if to make firm his throne with one foot, saying to himself, "Whose name-paper has been turned up now by Kṛtānta?" starts to take his thunderbolt, the wind to the fire of his own arrogance. When he saw Purandara thus like an angry lion, his general, like pride incarnate, bowed to him and asked: "O Master, with me present as a soldier, why this anger on your part? O Lord of the World, tell me what enemy of yours I am to destroy." Then the Lord of the gods composed his mind, employed clairvoyant knowledge, and knew the birth of the first Jina. At once Śakra, the violence of his anger oozing away from joy, became like a mountain with a forest-fire extinguished by rain. "Alas for what I thought. May my sin be without consequences." Saying this, the chief of the gods left the lion-throne. He took seven or eight steps,
145 316. I am told by Gujarātis that this custom still exists in some parts of Gujarat, and is supposed to give long life to the child.