Treasury of Jain Tales

SR No.: 006762
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: V M Kulkarni
Publisher: Shardaben Chimanbhai Educational Research Centre
Publication Year: 1994
Total Pages: 468
Language: English
Classification: Book_English
File Size: 17 MB

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country had everything in it that other countries had. The envoy replied that it generally had almost everything except a picture gallery. The king immediately sent out orders for the the preparation of it and all the artists in the town promptly started working on it. They distributed the work amongst themselves. Our young man was assigned the king's personal apartments including the royal bed rooms. As he was busy painting the rooms with appropriate pictures, his eyes fell on the toe of the queen who was standing on the other side behind a lattice. The young man had just a good look at the toe and completed a remarkable portrait of the queen. As he was working on the eye in the picture, a drop of paint fell on the thigh of the queen in the picture, which he immediately tried to wipe out but inspite of his repeated rubbings, the drop on the thigh could not be wiped out at all. When he thought about it for some time, he concluded in his own mind that the queen must have had a birth mark exactly at that spot where the drop of paint had fallen. He therefore made no more attempts to remove it but completed the picture.
When the king came along, to visit the picture gallery, his eyes were drawn to the portrait of the queen, and he was greately struck by the spot on the thigh and felt terribly disturbed at the thought that the artist could not have known anything about it unless he had made indecent approaches to the queen. He lost no time in passing an order to execute the painter.
All other artists in the town felt terribly shocked when they came to know of the king's drastic decision. They approached him to explain how the young man had received from the Yakṣa the boon of making the whole portrait from a slight glimpse of any part of the body. The king said he would put the young man to test. So he showed him only the face of a hunch-backed woman and asked him to work out the whole portrait. When however he saw the whole picture, he relented and changed the order of execution to a milder one of snipping off the tips of his right thumb and index finger. Then he banished him from his kingdom.
The poor young man went back to seek help and guidance from the same old Yaksa whose boon thus involved him in his present