Part 2: Previous births of Sanatkumāra as Jinadharma and of Asitākṣa as Agniśarman

Then at the end of his life he fell and was born a merchant’s son, Jinadharma, in the city Ratnapura. Even from childhood, he always observed the twelvefold dharma of the layman,^[1] like the ocean observing its boundary. Worshipping the Tīrthakaras with the eightfold pūjā,^[2] feeding the monks with gifts of food free from faults, et cetera, possessing extraordinary devotion, favoring his coreligionists, like brothers, with gifts, he passed some time.

Now, Nāgadatta, grieved by the separation from his wife, wandered in animal-births after death because of painful meditation (ārtadhyāna). Wandering through births for a long time, he became a Brāhman’s son, Agniśarman, in the city Siṃhapura. In course of time he became a three-staved ascetic and went to the city Ratnapura, devoted to severe penance of two months, et cetera. Harivāhana was the king in that city. He was a Vaiṣṇava and he heard that an ascetic had come. At the time for breaking his fast, he was invited by the king and went to the palace. By chance he saw Jinadharma. Then because of the hostility of a former birth, the Ṛṣi, red-eyed from anger, spoke to King Harivāhana whose hands were joined (respectfully):

“If you set a very hot dish of rice-pudding on this merchant’s back and feed me, O king, then I shall eat, but not otherwise.”

“I will set the dish on another man’s back and feed you,” the king replied to the muni. He, angered, repeated, “If you set the very hot dish of rice-pudding on his back, I shall eat, O lord of kings; otherwise, I shall certainly go away with my desire unaccomplished.”

The king consented because he was a Vaiṣṇava. What kind of discernment have men outside the Jaina teaching? At the king’s command his (Jinadharma’s) back was given to the Brāhman while he ate and he endured the heat of the dish like an elephant a forest-fire. “This is the result of my former action, nothing else. May it be destroyed by this (result), a friend,” he reflected for a long time.

When he had eaten, the pudding-dish was pulled up from his back together with blood, flesh, fat, and serum, like an inlaid brick with mud. Jinadharma, learned in the religion of the Jinas, went home, summoned his people, all of them, and bestowed and begged forgiveness for all faults. Jinadharma made a pūjā in the shrine, went to the monks and adopted mendicancy according to rules. He left the city, ascended a mountain-top, made final renunciation, and practiced kāyotsarga for two weeks (facing) the east. He performed kāyotsarga in the other directions also, though torn by birds, vultures, herons, et cetera, with their beaks.

Footnotes and references:

[1]:

See I, 25 ff., 207 ff.

[2]:

See II, n. 411.