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16. JAINA RELIGIOUS AND MORAL STORIES
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of his departure for the Sahasrakūta shrine for the celebration of the Eight-day rites, the merchant sent for his daughter, and was told that she was playing the bride with her doll, while her maiden friends were singing nuptial songs. When Anantamati appeared before the old man, he asked her in jest to take the vow of chastity rather than barbour thoughts of marriage. The maiden, however, took the vow very seriously. Onoe in springtime she came out to indulge in the pastime of singing in company with her maiden friends on the day of Cupid's festival, when she was seen by a Vidyadhara, travelling through the air, accompanied by his wife. Wishing to abduct her, the demi-god went back to his home, left his wife there, and then returned and flew away with Anantamati. But his wife was quick to follow, and seeing her in a rage, he hastily dropped the maiden in a forest near Sankhapura. There she was seen by a Kirāta hunter named Bhima who took her away to his village. Failing to seduce her by persuasion, he decided on violence; but meanwhile, through the intervention of the sylvan deities, who admired the firmness of the girl, the house of the hunter caught fire, and the miscreant, seeing the danger, begged her to forgive him, and then left her on the slope of a mountain on the border of Sarkhapura. There she was found by a young merchant who had encamped with his caravan near by; but unable to seduce her with money, he made her over to a bawd in the city of Ayodhyā. The latter, failing to mislead the girl, presented her to the king of that region, who in his turn discarded her, being baffled by her constancy and the opposition of the presiding goddess of the city, who had marked her displeasure by doing harm to many of the king's subjects. Anantamati then came to live in a shrine near the house of Jinendradatta, the husband of her father's sister. After some time her father, while on a visit to his brother-in-law, happened to see her engaged in austerities in the shrine, and proposed to marry her to her cousin Arhaddatta, the son of Jinendradatta. But she firmly rejected the proposal on account of her vow of chastity.
III) Lack of hesitation in the practice of one's religion, for example, in the exercise of piety, is illustrated in the story of king Auddāyana, famous for his philanthropic actions. In order to test his piety, a certain god assumed the form of a religious mendicant, a loathsome leper with stinking and decaying limbs, and came to the king's house and asked for food. The king received him with open arms, and personally waited upon and treated him to a sumptuous meal. Unfortunately the leper felt sick, and as he lay in a mass of vomitted food, the king raised and washed him with his own hands, wiped his body with a silken scarf, and solaced him
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