The Forest of Thieves and the Magic Garden: An Anthology of Medieval Jain Stories (Penguin Classics)

by Phyllis Granoff

  (from the Kumārapālapratibodha of Somaprabhasûri, p.47)

  21

  SIṂHIKĀ

  Now when her time came the Queen Vicitramālā, wife of Sukośala, gave birth to a son. The delivery was smooth and the baby bore all of the auspicious marks. Since the mother had a complexion of gold while the child was still in her womb, they gave the handsome child the name “Hiranyagarbha”, “Born from the Golden One”. So virtuous was this King Hiranyagarbha that the Golden Age of old seemed to have returned, as if attracted by his good qualities. Hiranyagarbha married Amrtavatī, daughter of Hari. He had many devoted friends and relatives and was learned in all the sciences. Glorious, he had inexhaustible wealth, like a mountain made of gold. Noble Hiranyagarbha enjoyed every pleasure of the senses until the day he noticed a grey hair amongst all of his dark hairs. Seeing that grey hair in the mirror, like a messenger sent by the god of Death to warn him, he was filled with sorrow. ‘Alas!’ he lamented, ‘old age has taken hold of my body, intent upon destroying my strength and beauty. This body of mine, which is now like a sandalwood tree, will become like a heap of charcoal, burnt by the fire of old age. Old age will lie in wait, spying out where disease has made me weak, and then like a demoness, old age will attack my body. Next death, who has been waiting patiently like a tiger ready to pounce on his prey, will make haste to devour my body. Fortunate indeed are those stalwart bulls among men, who having been born in this land where it is possible to practice the true religion, grasp the raft of renunciation and cross the ocean of transmigratory existence.’

  With these thoughts he installed Am·tavatī’s son Naghusa on the throne and became a monk under the tutelage of a pure and holy man. This Naghusa, ‘Silence’ was so called because when he was in the womb no one even said a word that was impure or unpropitious. Everyone bowed down: to him, won over by his virtues. One day Naghusa left his wife Siṃhikī in the city and went North with his army to subdue the feudatories who were in rebellion. When the rulers of the South came to know that the king was absent from his capital city, they raised vast armies and proceeded to lay siege to Naghusa’s capital Vinītī. The valorous Simhikā defeated them all in battle. She then appointed someone trustworthy to rule over their kingdoms. Siṃhikī was skilled and practiced in the use of various weapons; now she gathered the feudatories that she had already defeated and with them she marched deep into the South to subdue the rest of the rebellious kings. The queen conquered all of the rebellious vassals by her great valour and returned to celebrations of her victories in the capital.

  In the meantime Naghusa had subdued the Northern region and returned to the city. He was in a rage when he heard about his wife’s victories. He was convinced that no decent, self-respecting woman from a good family, faithful to her husband, could possibly be so bold. And so he turned against Siṃhikī. Although she was pure in character and stainless in her conduct, he removed her from her position as Chief Queen. She lived neglected and in poverty for some time.

  One day the king was seized by a terrible fever that was beyond the reach of any of the medicines that the doctors could supply. When Simhikā heard that the king was so ill, she was filled with sorrow; she was also eager to prove to the world that she had been a chaste wife. She summoned all of their relatives and all of the vassals and the subjects. She took in her hands the water that the priest gave to her and she pronounced this oath: ‘If it is true that no man but my husband has ever occupied my thoughts, then let the king be cured of his fever by the touch of this water.’ As soon as he was sprinkled with the water from her hand, the king became so cold that his teeth began to chatter, as if he had been immersed in a bath of ice. The heavens resounded with the cry, ‘Behold! How wonderful!’ and a rain of flowers fell down from invisible hands.

  Thus the king came to know that his wife had been faithful to him. He reinstalled her in the position of Chief Queen with great honor and respect. He enjoyed the pleasures of the senses with her for a long time and ruled without any trouble from rebellious vassals. Then, free of all desires for worldly pleasures, that king did what all his forebears had done. He installed his son born of Simhikā on the throne and followed in the footsteps of his father, becoming a monk.

  (from the Padmapurāna of Ravisena, Ch.22)

  22

  ĀRYANANDILA

  In the city of Padminīkhanda was a king named Padmaprabha. His wife was named Padmāvatī. In that very city also dwelt the merchant Padmadatta. His wife was named Padmayaśā. They had a son, who was named Padma. The travelling merchant Varadatta pledged his own daughter, who was named Vairotyā, to this son of theirs in marriage. And he married her in due time.

  One day Varadatta, the father of Vairotyā, was on his way to foreign lands with all of his family, when they all perished in a forest fire. Vairotyā, though she served her mother-in-law faithfully and humbly, met with only contempt from the older woman who knew that she had lost her father. For what they say is true:

  That women seem beautiful and possessed of hidden wealth, that women seem strong and spirited and enjoy their husband’s favour, that women wield authority in their home, for sure all of this is nothing but the result of the status and power of their fathers, who are always there behind the scenes.

  But though she was exceedingly pained by her mother-in-law’s words, which burned like a raging fire as it consumes dry chaff, she cursed her own bad luck and never uttered a word against her mother-in-law. And she thought to herself:

  ‘Everyone reaps the fruit of his own past actions. Another person is just the incidental cause of our misery or happiness, which we alone bring about through our very own deeds.’

  One day Vairotyā had a dream in which the Snake King announced her impending pregnancy to her and she conceived a child. She began to crave sweet milk pudding. It was then that the Jain monk Āryanandila happened to stop in a nearby public garden; like Āryaraksitasvāmin before him, he possessed knowledge of thirteen of the fourteen ancient texts. Now that mother-in-law proclaimed, ‘This woman will give birth to a daughter, she will never produce a son.’ The chaste and faithful Vairotyā, pained by the harsh words of her mother-in-law, which pierced her ears like a sharp sword, went to pay her respects to the Jain monk. She bowed down to the monk. She told him about her dreadful relationship with her mother-in-law. The monk said, ‘This is the fault of some previous deed that you have done in another life. Do not let your anger grow. Do not let it grow, because it is the cause of rebirth and continued suffering. O daughter! In this birth, anger gives rise to such things as bodily harm, constant fighting and even undying hatred; and in the next world, it results in the most terrible suffering that comes from rebirth in hell and similar terrible misfortunes. I promise you, you will give birth to a son. I know that since you have become pregnant, you long to eat sweet milk pudding. I promise you that somehow your craving will be fulfilled.’

  Delighted by these words of the monk, she went back home. And she thought to herself, ‘What they say is true:

  No matter how long we wander this earth, which is girded by the four vast oceans, we will never meet a person of truly noble nature to whom we can tell the long-kept secrets of our many miseries or even joys, and thereby for a minute, or even for a half a minute, feel suddenly at rest and peace.

  ‘But I have met such a person today in meeting this monk.’

  One day, Padmayaśā, for her part, on the full moon night of the first month of spring, performed a ritual fast and was about to break her fast with appropriate ceremony. On that day it was the custom to give to the monks an ample portion of sweet milk pudding and to show particular generosity to all the lay members of the Jain faith. She did all of that. But because she hated her daughter-in-law, she gave her only coarse fare of cheap grain. Now the daughter-in-law secretly took some of the sweet milk pudding that was left over in a large cauldron and hastily poured it into a small pot, which she concealed under her clothes as she went out to the lake to fetch water. She set the pot down u
nder a tree and went to wash her hands and feet.

  Now it so happened that at this very moment in time there was a snake named Aliñjara, who lived in the underworld, and whose wife was also pregnant and longing to eat sweet milk pudding. She had come out from the nether regions and was now roaming the earth in search of some sweet milk pudding. That was how she came to see the pudding in the pot under that tree. And she ate it all. The snake lady then set out for her home by the very same path that she had taken to come up from the underworld. When Vairotyā had finished washing up and got back to the tree, right away she saw that there was no sweet milk pudding left in the pot any more. But even so she did not get angry and she did not utter a single nasty word. Instead she spoke these words of blessing,

  ‘May you find fulfilment of your wishes, whoever you are, who ate this pudding.’

  Now Aliñjara’s wife, concealed from view by the tree, heard her words of blessing. She returned home and told her husband what had happened. Vairotyā went home too. That night, the wife of the snake Aliñjara appeared to a neighbor of Vairotyā’s in a dream and said, ‘Fair lady! I am the wife of the snake Aliñjara. Vairotyā is my daughter. She is pregnant and longs to eat sweet milk pudding. You must fulfil her wish. And so I instruct you that you should say these words to her, ‘Your father is gone. But I shall take care of you as your own father would have done. I shall cool the burning pain that you feel from the fire of your mother-in-law’s wrath.’

  The next morning Vairotyā’s neighbour treated her to a meal of sweet milk pudding. Her pregnancy longing fulfilled, she gave birth to a son. As for the snake lady, she gave birth to a hundred sons. When the day came for Vairotyā’s son’s naming ceremony, the snake Aliftjara made a huge party for her. He had all the snakes in the underworld build a magnificent and beautifully appointed mansion on the spot where her father’s house had stood. All the snakes gathered, with their troops and their elephants, their horses and their finest chariots. They filled her house with riches. And Aliñjara’s wife, who now considered Vairotyā to be her adopted daughter, went there too, along with her husband and her many sons, and showered her with the most beautiful gifts of the finest clothes, silks, gold, and bracelets and necklaces all studded with precious gems. And Vairo⃛yā began to visit Aliñjara’s wife frequently after that. Vairotyā was treated with great respect by Aliñjara’s wife and shown much honour. Her mother-in-law, ‘seeing that Vairotyā’s father’s house now had returned, as it were, to its former wealth and splendour, began to treat Vairo⃛yā’s with great deference, for it is true what they say: ‘People show respect to someone whom others already honour.’

  The snake lady sent her very own young sons to protect Vairotyā and watch over her. She put all those snakes into a pot. Now one day a servant girl chanced to put that pot on top of a metal pan that had just been heated on the stove. At once Vairotyā took it off. She sprinkled the snakes with water and revived them. But one baby snake had lost the tip of his tail. As she saw him slither and slip, having trouble without his tiny tail, she affectionately called out, ‘Long live my clown of a tailless one, who’ll show us all a trick or two before he’s done.’ And the snakes, who were bewitched by Vairotyā’s charming son and loved him very much, all became like members of her own family and they gave her fine costly garments, gem stones and gold. And having made such a fine celebration for her son’s naming day, eventually they all went back to their own homes. Vairotyā came to be the object of everyone’s respect because of all the wonderful things the snakes did for her.

  One day the snake Aliñjara noticed that one of his sons had lost his tail and he became furious. ‘What wicked person has damaged my son’s tail?’ And when he knew through his supernatural powers that it was Vairotyā who was responsible for the loss of his son’s tail, then, despite all the kind feelings he had cherished for her up until that moment, he became enraged at her now. And in his anger he went to her home in order to do her some harm in return. Aliñjara hid himself in her house. Now Vairotyā had come to have the habit that whenever she entered a dark room,. she would call out a little blessing to that snake that she had inadvertently injured, in order to ward of any evil that might lurk there. She would say, ‘Long live my little clown of a tailless one,’ as she had called him that day. Now when he heard Vairotyā call out these words, the snake king was pleased with these words, ‘My daughter, from this day on you must come regularly to us in the underworld and the snakes will come to you.’ And Vairotyā through the power of this boon from the snake, did indeed come and go between the earth and underworld as she pleased. She called her son “Nāgadatta”, “Gift of the Snakes”.

  At that time the Glorious monk Āryanandila told Padmadatta, Vairotyā’s father-in-law, ‘You must tell Vairotyā, “Go to the domain of the snakes and say to the snakes: you must help everyone in our world. You must never bite anyone.”’ Her father-in-law related these words of the monk to her and she told them to the snakes. She went down there and she told them in a loud and clear voice, ‘Long live Aliñjara’s wife. Long live Aliñtjara. They restored my father to me even though he was dead by restoring the prestige of his house. They were my refuge when I had no refuge. Hear, hear, all you young snakes. The Great monk Āryanandila commands, “Do not trouble our world. Help every one of us.”’ Vairotyā then went back home. The monk composed a new hymn called “Praise to Vairotyā”. Whoever recites this “Praise to Vairotyā” need not fear any harm from snakes.

  Vairotyā brought all the snakes to the monk, who had become her teacher. He instructed them in the Jain faith. They all became calm and pure in mind. Vairotyā’s son, who was called Nāgadatta, became a rich and prosperous man. Padmadatta became a Jain monk and his beloved wife became a Jain nun. He practiced austerities and went to heaven. And for her part Padmayasśā became his divine wife, according to his wishes, for he had achieved the power to bring into being anything that he desired. And Vairotyā died while meditating on the king of snakes and was reborn as the wife of the snake Dharanendra, a protector of the Jain faith. In that rebirth she kept the name Vairotyā.

  (from the Prabandhakośa of Rājaśekharaśūri, p. 5)

  23

  THE GODDESS AMBIKĀ

  Bowing down to the holy mountain of Ujjayanta and to the Jina Neminātha, I write the story of Kohaṇḍidevī as I have heard it from the elders.

  There is in the territory of Surāṣtra a city named Koḍīnagara bustling with rich people who have plenty of gold and money. In that city dwelt a wealthy brahmin named Soma, who was punctual in his performance of his religious duties and was knowledgeable in the Vedic scriptures. His wife Ambinī wore costly ornaments on her person, but her greatest treasure was her purity of conduct. As this couple enjoyed the pleasures that life can bring they produced two sons. The first was named Siddha and the second was called Buddha. Now it happened that the time had come to perform a ceremony on behalf of the family ancestors and the brahmin Soma invited many brahmins for a ritual meal to take place on the day of the memorial service. Some of the brahmins were engaged in reciting the Vedas; some made offerings to the ancestors; others performed sacrifices and made oblations into the sacred fires. Ambinī prepared many foods for the occasion; she made cakes of rice and lentils; she made spiced delicacies with the finest condiments, and even sweet milk pudding.

  And then, when her mother-in-law went to take her bath, at that very moment a Jain monk came to their home looking for alms so that he might break his fast that had lasted one month. As soon as she saw him, Ambinī was filled with joy; as she rose to serve him she felt her body tingling with excitement. Her heart filled with devotion, she offered the Jain monk the first serving of the foods that she had prepared.

  As soon as the monk accepted these alms, the mother-in-law reappeared on the scene, back in the kitchen after her bath. She could see that some of the food was gone. Furious, she kept asking her daughter-in-law what had happened. Ambinī told her exactly what had taken place, and her mother-in-law
began to scream at her and abuse her. ‘You slut! Now what have you done! You haven’t even worshipped our family deity, you haven’t yet served the brahmins, you haven’t put out the offerings for the ancestors. How dare you give the first food to some Jain monk!’ And the mother-in-law told the brahmin Soma what his wife had done. He was enraged and he threw her out of house, fearing that she would bring ill luck upon them all.

  Despondent at this humiliation, Ambinī took Siddha by the hand and, carrying Buddha on her hip, she left the city. As she walked on, the children became oppressed by thirst and begged her for water. Her eyes filled with tears, but then, lo and behold, a dried-up lake that lay in their path became filled with water by the power of her pure conduct. She gave them both cool water to drink. Then the children grew hungry and begged her for something to eat. A mango tree on the road at once burst into fruit. She gave them ripe mangoes to eat. The children felt satisfied.

  Now hear what happened while she was sitting down to rest in the shade of that mango tree. When she was still at home she had fed the children and she had then taken the leaves that they had eaten from and thrown them away outside. A guiding Goddess of the Jain faith took pity on her, moved by the great power of her purity. The goddess turned all those leaves into gold platters and dishes. And the drops of children’s saliva that had fallen from the leaves onto the ground were turned into costly pearls. Even the food that Ambinī had given to the Jain monk was magically restored to the pot from which she had taken it. Her mother-in-law saw this miracle and told the brahmin Soma. And she also told him, ‘Son, your wife will bring us good fortune and is a faithful and pure wife. You must bring her back, for she will be the support of this family.’ Thus it was that the brahmin Soma, obeying his mother’s command, and burning with the painful fires of remorse, went to bring his wife back home. But when she saw that best of brahmins coming after her Ambinī was terrified. She looked this way and that in search of rescue. And then she saw an old well right in front of her eyes. Her mind fixed on the best of Jinas, her heart rejoicing in the gift that she had made to the monk, she threw herself into the well. Giving up her life with her mind filled with lofty thoughts, she was reborn as the powerful Goddess Ambikā in the sphere of the Gods known as Kohanda, just four leagues from the heaven Sohamma. She is also known as Kohanmi after the heavenly sphere in which she was reborn. For his part, the brahmin Soma, seeing that most faithful of wives jump into the well, threw himself in the well after her. He too died and became a god in the very same heavenly sphere. By the power of his magic he transformed himself into a lion and became her mount. Others say that Ambinī jumped off the summit of Mount Revaya and that the brahmin Soma followed her and died in the same way. They relate all the other details of the story in exactly the same way.