Trishasti Shalaka Purusa Caritra Part 4

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

Page 269

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CHAPTER FIVE "There was a king, Vijayaparvata, in the town Padmini. He had a messenger, Amftasvara, and the messenger had a wife, Upayogā, and two sons, Udita and Mudita. There was a friend of the messenger, a Brāhman, Vasubhūti; and Upayogā was in love with him and wished to kill Amftasvara. At the king's command Amstasvara went to a foreign country one day. Vasubhūti went with him and slew him on the road by a trick. Vasubhūti came to the city and told the people, 'Amrtasvara sent me back because of some business.' He told Upayogā, 'I killed Amrtasvara on the road by using a trick, as he was an obstacle to our pleasure.' She said, 'You did well. Kill these boys also. Let be complete freedom from troublesome persons.' He agreed to that. By chance Vasubhūti's wife heard this plan and from jealousy told his sons, Udita and Mudita. Vasubhūti was felled at once by Udita in anger and, having died, was born a Mleccha in the village Nala.
One day the king listened to dharma from sage Mativardhana and became a mendicant; and they also, Udita and Mudita. Udita and Mudita set out to worship the shrines on Sammeta and came to the village, as they wandered on the road. The Mleccha, the soul of Vasubhūti. ran to kill them because of former enmity, as soon as he saw them, and was prevented by the Mleccha-king. The lord of the Mlecchas was a deer in a former birth and had been set free from a hunter by the jīvas of Mudita and Udita who were farmers in that birth. Henceforth protected by the Mleccha-king, they went to Sammeta, worshipped the shrines, and wandered for a long time. After fasting to death, they became very powerful gods in Mahāśukra, Sundara and Sukeśa.
After wandering through existence, the Mleccha, Vasubhūti's jīva, attained a human birth with difficulty and in it he became an ascetic. After death he became a god among the Jyotiskas, named Dhūmaketu, possessing false-belief, hard-hearted.