Yasastilaka and Indian Culture

Author(s): Krishnakant Handiqui
Publisher: Jain Sanskruti Samrakshak Sangh Solapur

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YASASTILAKA AND INDIAN CULTURE
were brought ashore, and ordered by the king to be made over to the cook of a hospice for Brāhming. Everyday slices from their bodies were cooked and served to the inmates until they both expired after prolonged sufferings.
d) After this, Yasodhara and Candramati were reborn as a pair of goats in a herd of sheep in the village of Kankāhi, near Ujjayinī. One day, while the male goat (Yaśodhara) was covering the female, the herd got scared, and the leader of the rams attacked the billy-goat with his horns. The goat died, but was reborn in the womb of the she-goat. One day Yasomati came there on a hunting expedition, accompanied by a large number of hunters; but unable to kill any game in the woods, he returned, angry and disgruntled, and while passing through the herd, hit the she-goat (Candramati) with an arrow, ripped open her belly, and found the kid in the womb.
The young goat was entrusted to the care of the chief cook, and passed a few months in the royal kitchen. There he saw Amstamati teaching the cooks how to roast meat, but she had been stricken with leprosy in consequence of her sins, and her loathsome body emitted so foul & smell that the attendants had to go about, covering their noses. Besides, the maids used to point at her mockingly, and tell passers-by how she had administered poison to her husband, the great and good Yaśodhara.
Meanwhile, the she-goat, after her death, was reborn as a buffalo in Kalinga. Purchased by the owner of a caravan, the ani course of time to Ujjayini, and used to swim in the Siprā. One day he happened to meet Yasomatis horse, and immediately made a murderous attack on the latter, owing to the innate mutual hostility of the two species of animals As à punishment, the buffalo was tortured to death under the orders of the king. The young goat, too, was killed for the table of Amrtamati who was inordinately fond of meat.
e) Yasodhara and his mother Candramati were next reborn as . a cock and a hen, but there is a prelude to the story.
A sage named Manmathamathana was engaged in deep meditation on the Vijayārdha mountain. A Vidyādhara named Kandala vilāsa, who was going over the mountain in his aerial car, was ashamed to find that the motion of the vehicle was checked by the mystic force of the sage. By way of retaliation, the Vidyādhara decided to exercise his own magical powers to interrupt the meditation of the sage, and conjured up a scene of terror, by producing torrential rain, hail-stones and hurricanes, and a crowd of goblins, decked with serpents. Ratnaśikhaņdin, the king of the Vidyadharas, who was coming to worship the sage, was enraged to