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16. JAINA RELIGIOUS AND MORAL STORIES
VIII) The next story is designed to illustrate the value of sympathy for one's co-religionists, and interesting as a Jaina version of the story of Bali and the Dwarf Incarnation of Viṣṇu. Jayavarman, the king of the city of Viśālā in Avanti, had four ministers headed by Bali, all of whom were heretics. They were Sukra, a Buddhist; Bṛhaspati, a materialist; Prahladaka, a Śaiva; and their elder brother Bali who was an expert in Vedic lore. Once the Jaina ascetic Akampana, while on a visit to the city, encamped in the public park, and the streets were crowded with citizens going to pay homage to the sage. Seeing this, the king, too, expressed his desire to visit and pay his respects to the sage, but the ministers sought to dissuade him by glorifying their respective faiths. Bali, for instance, extolled the Veda and the Vedic religion, while Prahladaka emphasized the glory of Śiva and the Saiva scriptures. Disgusted with the attitude of the ministers, the king mounted on an elephant and betook himself to the camp of the sage. Thereafter offering his salutations, he entered into conversation with the Suri on religious topics such as the nature of heaven and salvation. Bali who had accompanied the king intervened with the remark that heaven was nothing but the mutual love of a maiden of twelve and a youth of sixteen, and there was no other heaven invisible to the human eye. The sage asked Bali if direct perception was the only proof admitted by him. On his replying in the affirmative, the sage asked him how in that case he would prove the occurrence of the marriage of his own parents or the existence of his forefathers. Bali was very much annoyed at this, and unable to hit upon a plausible reply, he abused the sage in indecent and insulting terms. The king did not say anything then and there for the sake of decency; but returning home, he banished Bali and his brothers from his kingdom on the pretext of some other offence.
Bali with his brothers took refuge in the country of Kurujāngala, and he became the chief minister of king Padma of Hastinagapura. There he won the gratitude of the king by vanquishing the latter's enemy Simhakirti who had invaded the city. Bali then obtained the king's permission to set out on an expedition of conquest. Meanwhile, the sage Akampana, accompanied by a huge concourse of monks, had in the course of his wanderings arrived in the vicinity of Hastinagapura, and taken up residence for the rainy season in a large cave of the Hemagiri mountain. Bali, on his return from the expedition, came to know of the whereabouts of his old opponent and decided on revenge. By virtue of a boon conferred upon him by king Padma as a mark of gratitude for the overthrow of Simhakirti, Bali obtained from the prince the entire sovereignty of the kingdom for
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