Life and Stories of Jaina Savior Parcvanatha

SR No.: 011028
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: Maurice Bloomfield
Publisher: Maurice Bloomfield
Publication Year: 1919
Total Pages: 271
Language: English
Classification: Book_English, N000, & N040
File Size: 20 MB

Page 162

Life and Stories of Pārçvanātha
property: he who eats the fruit of one of them is made king on the seventh day after; he who has the fruit of the other in his stomach, from his mouth fall every morning 500 dinars into his rinsing water. Now you took with you a fruit of each of these trees, so this is your chance to do good.' The male agreed, the birds flew off, and left the two fruits behind (99).
148
Varasena gave the royalty fruit to Amarasena, keeping the gold-producing one for himself. With the gold which he duly found in his rinsing water he procured clothes, food, and other luxuries. On the seventh day they arrived at Kāñcanapura, whose king had just died without successor. Amarasena lay asleep under a tree outside the city, was duly selected as king by the fiveoracle process (pañcadivyadhivāsana),10 and was led in state to the city, where he henceforth ruled as king (115). Varasena, unwilling to intrude upon his brother in his high station, gave himself over to pleasure, living in the house of a courtezan, Magadha by name. His brother searched for him diligently, but vainly, and finally forgot him in the stress of his regal cares (128).
Varasena lived in such extravagant splendor, as to arouse the cupidity of Magadha's bawd, or 'mother.' 11 Having induced Magadha to coax out of him the secret of his wealth, she gave him a cuta fruit as an emetic,12 in order to obtain the gold-producing mango. Since, however, in her stomach it had no magic power, she ejected
Cf. Jülg, Kalmükische Märchen, p. 11, for the manner in which goldspitting is acquired, and the trick by which Varasena, in the sequel, 18 robbed of this delectable property. Also Çukasaptati 7. See additional note 22, on p. 202.
10 See the additional note 20, on p. 199.
"See for this stock figure of fiction, the author in Proc. Amer. Philos. Soc., vol. lii, p. 631.
13 This feature of the story occurs also Kathas. 108. 77 ff.; and in the Pañcākhyānavārttika, cited in the note on p. 145.