Trishasti Shalaka Purusa Caritra Part 4

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

Page 90

SRI MALLINĀTHACARITRA
55
marks. The Dikkumārīs came and performed the birthrites; the Indras conducted her to the top of Meru and bathed her in turn. After the bath Sakra anointed and worshipped her himself, waved the light, and recited a hymn of praise with intense devotion.
.Stuti (43-50)
"Reverence to you, depository of the three kinds of knowledge, chief of the three worlds; reverence to the nineteenth Arhat. By good fortune I am favored with the sight of you, after a long time. For, O Arhat, a god is not seen by people with ordinary merit. Today the divinity of the gods has its purpose accomplished after a long time by the sight of the birth-festival of you, the god of gods. Do you, O you who are wise in equal favor to the Lord of Acyuta at one time and to a mere mortal at another time, protect us falling into existence. You shine brilliantly, set like a sapphire in this Mt. Meru which has become a golden crown of the earth. You are born for the emancipation of a desireless person just by the remembrance (of you). For what are you asked by one who has seen and praised you? From that the fruit is exceedingly great. All good works on one hand, the sight of you on the other hand; because of the magical results obtained, a second (sight) is superfluous. Not in the rank of Indra, not in the rank of Ahamindra, I think not even in emancipation can there be such happiness as that of the man falling at your lotus-feet."
Childhood (52-53)
After this ardent hymn of praise to the nineteenth Arhat, Sakra took her to Mithila and laid her down near her mother. Because her mother had a pregnancy-whim to sleep on garlands, while she was still in embryo, the king gave her the name Malli.40 Tended daily by five
40 52. Malli means 'jasmine,' not 'garland'; but the jasmine is very generally used in making garlands,