Trishasti Shalaka Purusa Caritra Part 6

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

Page 197

ŚRENIKA, MEGHAKUMĀRA AND NANDISEṆA
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When nine months had passed, Ceṭaka's daughter bore a son, like the Malaya land bearing sandal. She commanded the slave-girl: "The child is an enemy of his father. Therefore, abandon him, wicked, somewhere far away like the young of a serpent. The slave-girl took him to a grove of aśokas and left him there. He shone on the ground, resplendent as a god who has appeared in the place of spontaneous birth.160 After the slave-girl had abandoned the baby there, as she returned the king asked her, Where have you gone?" and she told just what had happened. The king went to the aśokagrove, saw his son, and took him up in his arms, delighted as if at a favor from a master. He went to Celaṇā and said:
Discerning lady, born in a good family, why have you committed this crime which is not committed even by outcastes? Even a woman of evil life, who would be very harsh and ignorant of dharma, does not abandon a son born in adultery while her husband is living nor one born after he is dead. Cellaṇā said: He is an enemy of yours, lord, in the form of a son. While he was an embryo, there was a pregnancywhim leading to hell. For that reason he was exposed as soon as he was born. What is a son, or anyone else, to women wellborn and desiring the welfare of their husbands? "
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Śreņika advised the queen, If you abandon your eldest son, then your other sons will be weak, like bubbles.
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So at her husband's order, Celaṇa, though unwilling, cared for the child like a serpent by nursing it. The king gave him the name Aśokacandra because he was seen in the aśoka grove, like a moon in brilliance. While he was abandoned in the forest his little finger, tender as an aśoka-leaf, was pierced by a cock-feather. He was crying from its pain and the king put the finger, though it was infected, in his mouth from affection, and he stopped crying. The finger became contracted, though the wound healed, and because of that he was called Kūņika by
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160 297. Gods come into existence spontaneously on a couch in heaven. Cf. I. p. 47.