Trishasti Shalaka Purusa Caritra Part 2

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

Page 72

47
BIRTH OF AJITA AND SAGARA the gods remained listening. When the sound of Sughoşā had died away, Purandara's general made a proclamation to this effect in a loud voice :
“Attention ! Listen, all the gods living in Saudharmakalpa. The lord of the gods commands you all. In the city Ayodhya in Bharata in Jambüdvipa, the second Tirthanātha, the Lord, bestowing benefits on all, was born today from Vijayā, the wife of King Jitaśatru, because of the maturing of good fortune of the world. Now we must go there with our retinues for the Jina's birth-ceremonies to purify ourselves. You must come here quickly to go there with me with all magnificence and all
power.'”
The gods experienced great delight at this proclamation of his, like peacocks at thunder. At once they got into their cars like boats and, crossing the sky like the ocean, the gods went to Sakra.
Descriptions of Sakra's car (282-307) Hari instructs an Abhiyogika named Palaka, “Make a car to go to the Master.” He created the car a hundred thousand yojanas long and wide and five hundred yojanas high, like another Jambūdvipa; with light from jeweled walls like the ocean with high coral; with golden finials like Mānasa with erect lotuses; with long flags like a body marked with tilakas; with variegated jeweled spires like a mountain-crest with lofty peaks; beautiful with jeweled pillars like tying-posts of Śri's elephant; inhabited by puppets resembling other Apsarases; adorned with rows of little bells like an actor who had taken cymbals; marked with pearl-svastikas like the sky with constellations; beautiful with wolves, bulls, men, kinnaras, elephants, hansas, forest-creepers, and lotus-tendrils.
In three directions it had three flights of stairs like long waves of cascades flowing down a large mountain. In front of the flights of steps were jeweled arches, sisters, as it were, of the beauty of a whole row of rainbows.