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Shri Mahavir Jain Aradhana Kendra
www.kobatirth.org
Acharya Shri Kailassagarsuri Gyanmandir
-235 ]
25. SECTION ON THE MĀLATI FLOWER
303
bees give up(be freed from) the botheration (drudgery) of dancing attendance upon other flowers.
229) Let (all) the other varieties of flowers bloom with their overpowering (strong, oppressive) fragrance. In the case of the bee, however, the Mālati-flower alone (and none else) is the cause of uneasiness.
230) Oh bee, why do you turn your face away on seeing the tiny (undeveloped) Mālati-bud? It is from that same tiny bud that in course of time) there will emanate a fragrance pervading the world through and through (spreading throughout the world).
231) What have you to do with the tininess of the Mālatī and with the thinness of its petals? (i.e. don't bother about both these things). Ob bee, you will be convinced of the Mālati's greatness (power) in her (maddening) fragrance.
232) The (whole) forest is so abundantly pervaded by the fragrance of Mālati flowers in autumn, that here and there and (for the matter of that) anywhere, the bees are to be seen only with difficulty (outside of that forest).
233) What possible rivalry can other flowers put up with the Mālatī-flower? For bees, which are (merely) besmeared with its fragrance (i.e. which merely come into contact with its fragrance), are drunk (sucked) hy other bees (which mistake the former to be Málatī. flowers).
234) The Mālatī creeper, having raised its beckoning finger, under the guise of its bud, proclaimed with its fragrance (i.e. gave a challenge with its fragrance) : "Let that youthful bee who is able to capture me, come near me and take possession of me!'
235) Behold, it is only the Mālatī, who, though trembling (shuddering) and feeble, is able to bear the (jerks and jolts caused by che) vibrations of the wings, the lacerations caused by the nails and the proboscis and the sustaining of the body-weight of the bee.
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