Part 4: The inevitability of death

There is here a large country, Avanti by name, resembling heaven, charming with irreproachable cities, gardens, rivers, etc. In it there is a village, named Aśvabhadra, like a tilaka on the earth, fair with large pools, wells, tanks, and various groves. I am an inhabitant of this village, devoted to the study of the Vedas, constantly maintaining the sacrificial fire, coming from a pure Brāhman family.

One day I entrusted my son, dearer wife and went to another village to study different sciences. Next day while I was studying there, anxiety arose in me. I was troubled, thinking, ‘This is a very bad omen.’ Terrified by this bad omen, I returned to my own village, like a well-bred horse to the stable formerly occupied. From afar I saw my own house deprived of beauty. While I reflected for a long time, ‘Why is this?’ my left eye twitched rapidly, and a crow lighted on a dry tree and croaked loudly. Wounded in the heart by unfavorable omens such as these like arrows, bereft of mind, I entered the house like a man of straw. When my wife saw me rushing forward, her hair disheveled, crying at once, ‘Oh! my son! Oh! my son!’ she fell to the ground. Thinking ‘My son is certainly dead,’ I also fell to the ground at once, like a dead man. At the end of the swoon, again lamenting pitiably, I saw in the house my son bitten by a snake.

While I stayed awake at night without eating, etc., the family-deity announced to me, ‘Sir, why are you so crushed by the death of your son? I will restore your son, if you follow my instructions.’ I said, ‘The command of the goddess is authority.’ For what is not promised for the sake of a son by those miserable with grief? The family-deity said, ‘Bring quickly fire from an auspicious house where no one has died.’

Then from desire for my son I wandered daily to every house like a lost child, asking for that and being laughed at. All the people questioned told in every house of dead past number. There was no house without death. With hope crushed by its non-attainment, my mind lost like a dead man, miserable, I declared all that to the family-deity. The deity said, ‘If there is no auspicious house, how am I able to protect you from inauspiciousness?’

Urged on by that speech of the deity like an elephant-goad, wandering to every village, to every city, I came here. You are known as the comforter of the whole earth. There is no rival to you, first among the powerful. Even as the Vidyādharas, living in the two rows (of cities) inaccessible on Mt. Vaitāḍhya, take your commands on their heads like wreaths. Even the gods always execute your orders, like servants. The treasures constantly offer you desired objects. So I have come to you as a refuge, you the sole bestower of comfort on the poor. Bring for me the fire from some auspicious house, that the family-deity may bring my son though dead, since I am grieved at my son’s death.”

The King, though knowing the true nature of existence, being subject to compassion was grieved by his grief and said, after reflecting a little:

“My house is as much superior to all the houses on this earth, as Sumeru to mountains. In this was the Blessed Ṛṣabha Svāmin, who had unequaled rule in the three worlds, the first of the Tīrthanāthas, the first of kings, able to make an umbrella out of the earth, raising it by his arm, making a handle of Amarācala a lac of yojanas high, the nails of whose feet were sharpened by the crowns of sixty-four Indras, (yet) he died in course of time.

His first son, the first Cakravartin, Bharata by name, whose commands were always carried on the head by gods and asuras, who shared the seat of the Puruhūta of Saudharma, in course of time reached the end of his life. His younger son, the chief of those possessing the finest strength of arm, like the ocean Svayambhūramaṇa of all the oceans, unshaken by buffaloes, elephants, śarabhas, etc., scratching themselves (on him), absorbed in pratimā for a year like a diamond staff set up, long-armed Bāhubali, having the power of Bāhudanteya (Indra), did not remain any longer, when his life as a man was completed.

Cakrin Bharata had a son, Ādityayaśas, a sun in powerful splendor, not deficient in strength. Mahāyaśas was the son of Ādityayaśas, his glory sung to the ends of the earth, the crest-jewel of all the powerful. A son, Atibala, was born to him, ruling the earth with unbroken authority like Ākhaṇḍala. He had a son, named Balabhadra, causing happiness to the world by power and light, like the sun. His son was Balavīrya, the chief of the courageous and enduring, foremost of kings. A son, Kīrtivīrya, adorned with both fame and heroism, sprang from him, like a shining light from a light. His son was Jalavīrya, whose strength could not be resisted by enemies, like a rutting elephant by elephants, like a diamond staff by weapons. His son was Daṇḍavīrya, having the power of his staff unbroken, like another Daṇḍapāṇi (Yama), having terrible arm-staffs. All rulers of the southern half of Bharata, powerful, wearing the Blessed One’s crown brought by Indra, unconquerable by gods and asuras, having supernatural strength, all died by the law of time. Since then other powerful kings beyond number have died. For death is invincible.

Destroying everything like a backbiter, consuming everything like a fire, penetrating everything like a flood, that is Kṛtānta, alas! O Brāhman. No ancestor even in my house has survived death. What possibility is there in other houses? Where is the auspicious house? If your son alone should die, that (grieving) would be fitting for you. Why, Brāhman, do you grieve at death common to all? Kṛtānta is called Samavartin (Impartial), look you! because he behaves impartially to young and old, poor man and Cakravartin. This is the true nature of worldly existence, that no one in it is permanent, like a wave in a river, like an autumn-cloud in the sky. Furthermore, my father, mother, brother, son, sister, daughter-in-law—such a relation is not real. Some come from one place and some from another, and meet in one house. So all people are like travelers at a village-inn. When each goes away by a separate road as a result of their karma, what wise man would grieve at all? Do not grieve therefore, which is a sign of delusion, best of Brāhmans. Use firmness, noble sir, and entrust yourself to discernment.”

Then the Brāhman said, “O King, I know the true nature of existence of living beings. However, today I forgot it in grief for my son. To the extent that every man has knowledge, to the extent that every man possesses firmness, to that extent he does not experience with his soul separation from his beloved. O master, people like you, their minds purified by drinking the nectar of the Arhat’s teaching always, possessing firmness and discernment, are few. O discerning one, I deluded have been very well enlightened by you. This discrimination must be preserved by you for your own sake. It, disappearing, must be guarded when calamity is at hand; since surely a weapon is carried in time of danger. This death, impartial to the poor man and to the Cakravartin, destroying life, sons, etc., is afraid of no one. Listen! One who has few sons, etc., of him few die. Who has many, of him many die. But the pain of the two is just the same, indeed! like that of the kunthu^[1] and the elephant from light and heavy blows. Henceforth, I will not grieve for the loss of one son. Like me, do not grieve at the loss of all your sons. For your sixty thousand sons, resplendent with strength of arm, have died simultaneously as a result of destiny, O King.”

In the meantime the vassal-kings, ministers, generals, and other people of the princes’ retinues waiting in the vicinity, their faces covered with upper garments like people bashful from shame, their bodies colorless from grief like trees burned by fire, their minds exceedingly distraught like Kinnaras and Piśācas,^[2] their eyes tearful, miserable, like misers who have been robbed, their steps stumbling as if they had been bitten by snakes, entered the King’s assembly simultaneously, as if they had a rendezvous (with the Brahman’s speech).

They bowed to the King and sat down in, the proper places, and remained with down-cast faces as if wishing to enter the earth. After hearing the Brāhman’s speech and seeing them in such a condition and returned without the princes like elephants without drivers, the King quickly became (as if) painted, sculptured, asleep, or transfixed by a charm, distraught, with twitching eyes. The Brāhman spoke to enlighten again the King who had swooned from lack of firmness and been restored to his natural state by firmness, “You are of the family of Ṛṣabha Svāmin, who was a sun for the sleep of delusion of all, and you are a brother of Lord Ajita, O King. Why do you disgrace them now, O King, yielding to your delusion like a lowborn person?”

The King thought: “This Brāhman recited the prologue of the play of my sons’ destruction in the guise of his son’s death. Clearly he announces now the destruction of the princes. These ministers have come without the princes. How could their destruction come about, even in the mind, as they wandered over the earth at will, like lions in a forest? Attended by the great jewels,^[3] invincible from their own strength, by whom could they, having unstumbling powers, indeed, be killed?”

After these reflections, the King questioned the ministers, etc., ‘What is it?’ and they told the story of Jvalanaprabha. Struck by that news like an axe, the King fell to the ground in a swoon, shaking the earth. The mothers of the princes fell swooning to the ground. For the grief of fathers and mothers at the loss of sons is equal. A great cry arose from the people in the palace like that of animals inside the caves of the ocean-bank. The ministers, etc., wept distressingly, blaming themselves excessively as witnesses of the death of the master’s sons. As if unable to look at such a state of the master, the door-keepers sobbed, their faces covered with their hands. Abandoning their weapons though dearer than life, the body-guard rolled on the ground, lamenting, like trees blown down by the wind. The chamberlains wept violently, bursting their jackets like partridges that had fallen into a forest-fire. Beating their breasts like an enemy that had been found after a long time, the men and women servants wailed, saying, ‘We are killed.’

By fanning and sprinkling with water they restored consciousness, which drives in the arrow of pain, to the King fallen on the ground. Their clothes soiled by collyrium and tears, their cheeks and eyes covered by creepers of disarranged hair, their necklaces broken by blows on their breasts, the pearls of their bracelets crushed from rolling on the ground violently, sending out breath just like smoke from the fire of pain, the King’s wives wept with parching throats and lips. The King, abandoning firmness, shame, and discernment all at one time, like the queens, lamented:

“O princes, where are you? Return from your wandering. Now is the suitable time for you to take sovereignty and for Sagara to take the vow. Why does no one speak? The Brāhman spoke the truth. I have been robbed by a god Hke a chief knowing tricks, alas! O miserable god, where are you? Where are you, Jvalanaprabha? Where have you gone, after doing this thing unsuitable for a warrior, O wretch of a serpent? General, where has the violence of your cruel arm gone? Priest-jewel, where has your power to make safe gone? Carpenter, where has your skill in making fortresses oozed away? Steward, are your herbs for revivifying forgotten somewhere? Elephant-jewel, had you become careless at that time? Horse-jewel, had some pain of yours developed there? Wheel, staff, sword, were you then far away? Gem and cowrie, were you without light, like the moon by day? Umbrella and skin, were you split like the cover of a drum? Nine treasures, were you devoured by the earth? (Was such the case) since the princes, sporting without fear from confidence in you, were not protected even by all of you from the villain of a serpent?

After such destruction, what can I do now? If I kill Jvalanaprabha and his family, my sons indeed do not live. No one in Ṛṣabha Svāmin’s family has died in this way. Oh! sons, why have you died this shameful death! All my ancestors, living a human lifetime, took initiation and found heaven and emancipation. Verily, your confidence in wandering at will was not fulfilled, like the pregnancy-whim of trees originating in a great forest.^[4]

A full moon rose and was devoured by Rāhu by fate; a tree was bearing fruit and was broken by an elephant; a boat came to the shore and was broken by the coast-mountain; a new cloud was raised and was scattered by the wind; a field of rice was ripe and was burned by a forest-fire; and you, suited to religion, wealth, and love, were born and killed, alas! After reaching my house, O sons, you have gone, with the aims of existence unaccomplished, alas! alas! like beggars that had come to the house of a stingy rich man. Therefore, now enough of the jewels, the wheel, etc., and the treasures which, without you, separated from them, are like gardens, etc., without moonlight. What use have I for the sovereignty of six-part Bharatakṣetra, or even for life, since I have become deprived of my sons dearer than life?”

Then to enlighten the King bewailing so, the Brāhman-layman said in a voice sweet as nectar: “In your family enlightenment, like protection of the earth, has attained first authority. In vain you are enlightened by others, Your Majesty. Are you not ashamed to be enlightened by another, you whose brother, Lord Ajita, is the visible sun for the delusion of the world? That this worldly existence is worthless is taught to another, but why should it be told to you attending the All-knowing from birth? Fathers, mothers, wives, sons, and friends, all this in worldly existence is like something seen in a dream, O long. What is seen at dawn is not seen at noon, what is seen at noon is not seen at night. In this existence, alas! objects are transitory. You know the truth yourself. Establish yourself in firmness. Everything is lighted up by the sun. There is no other light but the sun.”

The King, listening to the Brāhman’s speech and recalling frequently his sons’ death, was filled with enlightenment and delusion, like Lavaṇoda Ocean with gems and salt, like the dark night between the fortnights with light and darkness, like the full moon with moonlight and marks, like Mt. Hima with divine herbs and snow. Just as great firmness was innate in the King, so incidental delusion was produced, originating in the destruction of his sons. Enlightenment and delusion were present at the same time in the King, like two swords in one scabbard, like two elephants at one post. Then the chief-minister, Subuddhi, who was clever, spoke with nectar-like speech to enlighten the King:

“Oceans may sometimes cross their boundaries, mountain-ranges may sometimes shake, the earth may tremble at times, a thunderbolt may break sometimes, but noble men like you do not despair in the least, even when great calamities are present. Hear how discerning people, knowing ‘Everything in existence, the family, etc., is seen in a moment and disappears in a moment,’ are not deluded.

Footnotes and references:

[1]:

A small three-sensed creature. Uttar. 3.4. See also PE and PH, s.v.

[2]:

Both Kinnaras and Piśācas are sub-divisions of the Vyantaras. I do not know why they are used as examples of distraction.

[3]:

I.e., the thirteen jewels; the woman-jewel was not with them.

[4]:

I.e., in the case of forest-trees, they would not be seen by women to make them blossom by kicks, kisses, etc.