Trishasti Shalaka Purusa Caritra Part 6

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

Page 332

292
CHAPTER ELEVEN change color. That is a double ill-omen. Lord, do not create any obstacle to my taking now the vow of mendicancy for which the time is suitable, as the fact that I am to live for a short time is indicated by the double ill omen.'
Thus addressed with importunity, the king replied: * Chief-queen, do whatever is pleasing to you. When you have attained divinity, qučen, you must enlighten me daily. For my sake, you must endure for the moment the delay to the delights of heaven.' Then having attained complete indifference to worldly things and having fasted, she died, and became a very powerful god in the first heaven.
A hunchbacked slave-girl, named Devadattā, made the pūjās to the image of the god of gods that had been placed in the shrine of the women's apartments. Now the god Prabhāvati knew by clairvoyance that Udāyana, though being enlightened, was not enlightened,225 so she planned this stratagem. One day the god assumed the form of an ascetic and approached the king, carrying a bowl filled with divine, immortal fruit. Saying, “An ascetic bearing a gift is like sweet-smelling gold,' the king honored the ascetic highly because of his devotion to ascetics. The king ate the fruit which was ripe, more fragrant than camphor, and brought by an esteemed person, as if it were seeds of the highest joy.
'Where did you get such remarkably fine fruit? Show me the place,' the king asked him. “Not very far from this city, there is a hermitage, restful to the sight, which produces such fruit.' 'Show me the hermitage,' said the king and the god by his own power isolated him and led him away, as if to give the information. After he had gone a short distance, he created a garden delightful with such fruit and filled with many ascetics, like Nandana. “This is an ascetics' garden and, as I am devoted to them, my wish for fruit will be granted.' With this thought the king ran forward like
225 428. This is not in agreement with Mahāvīra's doctrine that "being done is done,” but accords with Jamäli's heresy. See above, p. 194.