Part 15: Draupadī’s former births

The muni was asked by the kings, Kṛṣṇa, et cetera, “How can Draupadī have five husbands?” and he explained:

“This state of having five husbands will result from karma acquired in a former birth. What is remarkable? The course of karma is unequal. Here in the city Campā^[1] there were three Brāhmans, Somadeva, Somabhūti, and Somadatta, full brothers. They, rich in grain and cash, had wives—Nāgaśrī, Bhūtaśrī, Yakṣaśrī, respectively. Fond of each other, one day they made an agreement that they should all eat in one house in turn.

One day, while they were doing this, when the time came to cat in Somadeva’s house, Nāgaśrī made ready. She cooked many kinds of food and unknowingly cooked a bitter gourd made into a sauce. To find out what it was like, she tasted it and discovered that it was inedible and spit it out at once. Depressed at the thought, ‘This is still bitter, though I prepared it with many sweet materials,’ she put it away. She fed her husband and brothers-in-law and their families, who had come to the house, with other food without this.

Then Ācārya Śrī Dharmaghoṣa, who was omniscient, stopped with his retinue in the garden Subhūmibhāga. His disciple, Dharmaruci, went to Nāgaśrī’s house to break his month’s fast, Somadeva and the others being gone. Thinking,

‘Let him be satisfied with this,’ Nāgaśrī gave the muni the gourd-sauce. ‘I have never received this thing before,’ he reflected, went to show the dish, and put it in his guru’s hand, The guru smelled its odor and said, ‘If you eat this, you will die, son. Throw it out quickly. You should break your fast, after obtaining other food with which you are familiar.’

So instructed, he went outside and found a clean bare spot. A single drop of the gourd-sauce fell from the dish by itself and he saw the ants dying, that had been touched by it. He thought: ‘Many creatures are dying, touched by a drop of this. If it is thrown out, how many will die? Is it not better for me alone to die than for a lot of beings?’ Deciding so, he himself ate the gourd carefully. After he had made ārādhanā, he died, completely absorbed in meditation, and became a chief-god, an Ahamindra, in Sarvārthasiddha.

Now, the Ācārya Dharmaghoṣa instructed the other munis to find out why Dharmaruci was delayed. They saw him dead outside and, taking his broom, et cetera, they went and told the guru, grieving the guru. Then by employing his supernatural knowledge, the guru said, ‘This was a crime of Nāgaśrī’s against all ascetics.’ Then the monks and the nuns, angered, went there and told the people, Somadeva and others. Nāgaśrī was driven from the house by the Brāhmans, Soma and others, and, being reviled by the people, wandered everywhere, miserable. She experienced hell even here (on earth), afflicted by sixteen very severe diseases,^[2] cough, asthma, fever, leprosy etcetera. Hungry, thirsty, wearing tattered garments, roaming without shelter, in time she died and went to the sixth hell.

Rising from hell, she was born in the Mlecchas and went to the seventh hell after death. Rising from that she was born in the fishes. Again she went to the seventh hell and again she was born in the Mlecchas. So she, wicked, in this way went to all the hells, twice to each one. Then she was born many times in earth-bodies, et cetera and she destroyed much bad karma from the activity of involuntary destruction of karma.

Then here in Campā she became the daughter, Sukumārikā, of Sheth Sāgaradatta and Subhadrā. In the same place there was a wealthy caravan-leader, Jinadatta. His wife was named Bhadrā and his son Sāgara. One day Jinadatta, while passing near Sāgaradatta’s house, saw the girl Sukumārikā, who had grown up. He observed her playing with a ball on top of the house and went home, thinking, ‘She is suitable for my son.’

Then Jinadatta went with relatives and asked Sāgaradatta for the girl Sukumārikā for his son. Sāgaradatta said, ‘My daughter is dearer than my life. I can not exist at all without her. If your son, Sāgara, will live in my house as a son-in-law, then I will give him my daughter with a dowry, et cetera’. Saying, ‘I shall have him consider,’ Jinadatta went home and told Sāgara. Sāgara stood silent. By the rule, ‘unopposed is approved,’ his father considered his son a house-son-in-law of Sāgaradatta.

Sāgara was married to the girl by the parents and went to the bed-chamber with her and rested on a couch. Because of the power of past actions, burned severely instantly by her touch like a coal, Sāgara remained there with difficulty. Leaving her asleep, he escaped and went home. At the end of her sleep, not seeing her husband, she wept very loud. A slave-girl, who had been sent at dawn by Subhadrā to clean the teeth of the bride and bridegroom, saw her weeping, deserted by her husband. She went and told Subhadrā and Subhadrā told the sheth. The sheth himself reproached Jinadatta.

Jinadatta summoned his son and said to him privately: ‘You did not behave fittingly in deserting the daughter of a good family. Now go, son, to Sukumārikā. For I made such a promise before at that lime to respectable people.’ Sāgara declared: ‘Father, I will enter the lire rather than go again to Sukumārikā.’ Sāgaradatta heard that from inside the house and, hopeless, went home and told Sukumārikā: ‘Sāgara does not like you. So I shall find another husband for you, daughter. Do not worry.’

One day, standing at a window, he saw a man carrying a beggar’s bowl, wearing tattered clothes, seeking alms, surrounded by flies. The sheth called him, had him abandon the beggar’s bowl, had him bathed, fed, and anointed with sandal. He said to him: ‘I give you my daughter Sukumārikā. Stay comfortably with her without anxiety about food, et cetera.’ Talked to in this way, he went to the bed-chamber with her and, asleep, was touched by fire, as it were, from the touch of her body. Getting up, he put on his own clothes and fled. She, depressed, remained just as she was and was seen by her father. He said: ‘Daughter, this is the maturing of past actions. There is no other reason. Remain contented in my house, dispensing charity.’ Just so she gave gifts, tranquil, devoted to dharma, virtuous.

One day Āryā Gopālikā came to her house. She presented her with pure food, drink, et cetera. Listening to dharma from her, enlightened, she took the vow. Observing fasts of one day, two days, three days, et cetera, she wandered daily with āryā Gopālikā. One time, looking at the sun, she said to the āryā, ‘I shall do the penance of burning in the sun, standing in the garden Subhūmibhāga.’ She (the āryā) said: ‘The penance of burning in the sun is not done outside of one’s own place. That is prescribed for nuns in the Āgama.’

Just as if she had not heard that, she went to the garden Subhūmibhāga and began the sun-penance, her eyes fixed on the sun. She saw the courtesan named Devadattā, who had come there, being held on the lap by one lover, with an umbrella held by another, being fanned by another with a pleasant breeze, her hair being bound by another, her feet being held on the lap by another. She, whose desire for pleasure had not been satisfied, made a nidāna: ‘May I have five husbands, like her, as a result of this penance.’

Devoted to personal cleanliness, she sprinkled (herself) at every step; being restrained by the Āryā, she thought: ‘In the past when I stayed in a house, I was respected by the Āryā, but now that I am a mendicant, she scolds me in this way. Enough of her.’ Having considered so, she remained in a shelter apart. Alone, voluntarily she observed the vow for a long time. After fasting for eight months, she died without confessing and became a goddess in Saudharma with a life-term of nine palyopamas. When she fell, she became Draupadī and these five husbands were caused by that nidāna in the past. What is surprising in that?”

Footnotes and references:

[1]:

But they were in Kāmpīlya, not in Campā. Again, below, 317, Campā is given as the place where they were. ‘Atraiva’ makes this plain.

[2]:

The 16 diseases as given in the Com. to Uv. 148 are: asthma, cough, fever, burning sensation, colic, fistula, hemorrhoids, indigestion, sharp pain in the eyes (glaucoma?), headache, lack of appetite, inflammation of the eyes, earache, itch, dropsy, leprosy. For another list see SBE 22, Ācārāṅgasūtra, 1. 6.1.3. Cf. also Lai, p. 179,