Trishashti Shalaka Purusha Caritra

by Helen M. Johnson | 1931 | 742,503 words

This page describes Brahmadatta’s blinding which is the ninth part of chapter I of the English translation of the Brahmadatta-caritra, contained within the “Trishashti Shalaka Purusha Caritra”: a massive Jain narrative relgious text composed by Hemacandra in the 12th century. Brahmadatta in jainism is one of the 63 illustrious beings or worthy persons.

Part 9: Brahmadatta’s blinding

One day a Brāhman, an old acquaintance, said to him, “Cakravartin, give me the (same) food that you eat yourself.”

Brahmadatta said:” Brāhman, my food is very hard to digest; but when it is digested for a long time, it leads to a great frenzy.”

Then Brāhman said, “You are very stingy in giving food. Shame on you!” and the king fed him and his household with his own food. During the night a tree of insane love with a hundred branches appeared violently in the Brāhman from his porridge like a seed. The Brāhman and his sons, like cattle, committed sins in love with mother, sister, and daughter-in-law unrecognized. Then at the end of the night the Brāhman and his household were not able to show their faces to each other from shame. Thinking angrily, “I and my household have been derided by the king with cruel food,” the Brāhman went outside the city.

As he was wandering outside, he saw in the distance a goatherd perforating the leaves of a fig tree with pieces of gravel. Reflecting, “He is capable of effectuating my hostility,” after gaining him over with honor as well as money, he said to him: “By throwing little balls (of rock) you must put out the eyes of the one who goes on the highway, mounted on an elephant, with a white umbrella and chaurīs.” The goatherd agreed to the Brāhman’s command. Cattleherds act without reflecting, like cattle.

Taking his place inside a hut, throwing two little balls at the same time, he knocked out the king’s eyes. The command of Fate is not to be transgressed. The goatherd was caught by his bodyguards, like a crow by a hawk, and when he was beaten, confessed that the Brāhman alone was the cause of his crime.

After hearing that, the king said: “Shame, shame on the tribe of Brāhmans! Wherever they eat, they, wicked, break the dish. Better a gift to a dog than to him who becomes master of the giver. Certainly it is not fitting to give to ungrateful Brāhmans. Whoever created deceivers, cruel men, wild animals, meat-eaters, and Brāhmans, he must be blamed first of all.”

Saying this, the king, very angry, had the Brāhman killed, together with his sons, brothers, friends, like a handful of flies. Blind in both eyes, a promise having been made in his heart in anger, he had all Brāhmans, family priests, et cetera, killed.

He instructed the minister, “Fill a big dish with eyes of Brāhmans and set it before me.” Knowing the king’s cruel state of mind, the minister filled a dish with fruit of the sebesten and put it before him. Brahmadatta was delighted, touching them frequently with his hand, saying, “The dish is well filled with eyes of Brāhmans,”

Just as Brahmadatta had no pleasure in the touch of the woman-jewel, Puṣpavatī,[1] so he did have pleasure in the touch of the dish. At no time did he have the dish taken away from in front of him, like a drunk man a cup of wine, the cause of a low state of existence. He crushed the sebestens with the idea they were Brāhmans’ eyes, as if gratifying the pregnancy-whim of the tree of evil ready for fruit. His cruel state of mind grew worse, as it was unhindered. Everything pertaining to the great,’ favorable or unfavorable, is great.

Footnotes and references:

[1]:

Earlier and later she is called ‘Kurumatī.’

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