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16. JAINA RELIGIOUS AND MORAL STORIES
A variation of the story of Vajrakumara occurs in Hemacandra's Parisistaparva (Canto XII), which, though later than Somadeva's Yasastilaka, used old materials. Here, too, Vajra appears in the role of defender of the Jaina faith against the Buddhist community, although the place and circumstances are different. Somadeva's account is doubtless of greater importance as being connected with a wellknown historical monument, the Jaina Stupa of Mathura. It will be interesting to compare it with the version recorded by Hemacandra.
"The king (of Puri) was a Buddhist, and so were part of the inhabitants, while the majority of them were Jainas. As the two rival sects were continually competing with each other, the Jainas, being richer than their rivals, bought up all flowers so that the Buddhists could get none to offer in their temples. But the Buddhists induced the king to issue a strict order that no flowers should be sold to the Jainas. In this calamity the latter entreated Vajra to help them; for the Paryusanaparvan was drawing near, when the laity used to worship the images of the Arhats with flowers.
Promising his aid, Vajra went through the air to the town of Maheśvara, and entering the park of Hutasana he met the gardener Taḍit who was a friend of his. Feeling greatly honoured by Vajra's visit, the gardener inquired with what he could serve him, and being told that flowers were wanted, he promised twenty lakhs of flowers. Vajra ordered him to have them ready against his return, and then flew through the air to the Himalaya, and thence to the Padmahrada, the residence of Sridevi. There he met the goddess who held in her hand a lotus to worship the gods with, but she gladly gave it to Vajra when he asked for it.
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Returning to Hutāśana's park he produced by magic a divine car, in which he placed the lotus given by Sri and round it the twenty lakhs of flowers brought together by his friend Tadit. Accompanied by the Jṛmbhaka gods in their cars, whom he had called up to attend him on his journey through the air, he travelled towards Puri. When he and his train were just above the town, the Buddhists believed that the gods descended from heaven to worship the Buddha images. But great was their disappointment when the celestial train landed in a Jaina temple. Never has Paryusanaparvan been celebrated with such splendour as then at Puri. The miracles just related induced the king and his subjects to embrace the Jaina faith."
The last but one story of the series, that of Padma, is a tale of the trapping of a libertine by a chaste woman, and resembles the story of Vararuci's wife Upakosa and the plight of her lovers, recorded in Kathasaritsagara, Canto IV. As we have seen, the story, as related by Somadeva, is in the form of dramatic dialogues linked by narrative passages, and might easily be converted into a little play."
Jacobi: Parisistaparvan, p. xcvi.
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2 See chap. IV.
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