Paumacariya 2

Here in the continent of Jambūdvīpa, in southern Bharata, endowed with great virtues, / is a delightful country named Magadha, adorned with cities and settlements;

crowded with villages, cities, market-towns, hamlets, isolated settlements, and port-towns, / filled with cattle, buffaloes, and horses, its boundary paths thronged with heaps of grain;

with a host of pure folk consisting of caravan leaders, merchants, householders, and family heads, / and great granaries of jewels, gold, gems, pearls, and abundant grain;

in that land the people are skilled in science, exceedingly handsome, / endowed with strength, wealth, and radiance, and their minds are intensely intent on dharma;

resounding with the songs and continuous dances of actors, dancers, acrobats, and rope-dancers, / with travelers refreshed and adorned by various foods;

deeply engaged in wedding festivities, abounding in perfumes and flowers, / with continuous, increasing delight in abundant drinks, snacks, and feasts;

delightful on all sides with lotus ponds, lakes, and pleasure gardens, / free from enemy hosts, pestilence, thieves, and famine, and joyful.

In its very center is an ancient city, / encircled by huge, expansive ramparts, named Rājagṛha.

It has excellent mansions, lofty arched gateways, white turrets, and is free from blemish, / surrounded by moats, its extent laid out with battlements;

heavy with an abundance of excellent goods, its houses filled with jewels gathered from water and land, / noisy with the chatter of merchants arriving from various lands;

variegated with rays of emeralds and rubies in the courtyards and shrines of mansions, / fragrant with the country's enjoyment of aloe, olibanum, and sandalwood;

delightful with caitya shrines, rich in groves, parks, and forests, / exceedingly charming to behold with hundreds of ponds, lakes, stepwells, and reservoirs;

with the great and sweet clamor of captivating spectacles in squares and crossroads, / very rich in learned men, with many treatises and faultless conduct.

What need of saying much? That city is an abode of thousands of virtues; / it was fashioned as if taking the beauty of the city of the gods.

And in such a city lived a king named Śreṇika, / endowed with the virtues of a lord of men, Vaiśravaṇa visible to the eyes;

his glossy hair resembled black bees, the beauty of his face was like a blooming, excellent lotus, / his shoulders were solid, thick, and firm, and he possessed stout, elevated, and long arms;

his chest was broad and wide, his graceful waist could be grasped by the palm of a hand, / his hips were like the king of beasts, and his thighs resembled the trunk of an excellent elephant;

his lovely feet were like an excellent tortoise, blazing like a golden mountain, / with a gentle face like the moon, and deep as the ocean.

There is nothing of the majesty of a king's skill and wisdom that he did not know; / with intellect obtained from right view, he was capable of honoring gurus and deities.

Even a man skilled in diverse arts and scriptures, / though speaking for a very long time, could not reach the end of that excellent king's virtues.

Here in the land of Bharata is a city named Kuṇḍagrāma, rich in virtues; / and there was a bull among kings named Siddhārtha by name.

And he had a wife endowed with many virtues, gifted with beauty, named Triśalā; / in her womb the Jina arrived in his final rebirth.

Knowing through the trembling of their thrones that the lord of Jinas was born, / all the gods departed, their hair bristling with joy.

Having come to the city and caused a shower of fragrant water, / they took the supreme Jina and reached the summit of Mount Mandara.

Placing him on a lion throne fashioned with jewels on the Pāṇḍukambala slab, / the lords of the gods anointed him with jars filled with water from the Ocean of Milk.

And because Mount Meru was shaken by him in play with his big toe, / the lords of the gods therefore gave him the name Mahāvīra here [in this world].

Having bowed to the supreme Jina, praised him, and circumambulated him, / the gods placed the Guru of the Three Worlds back into his mother's presence.

Fed by the lord of the gods through the licking of a smear of nectar on his big toe, / the Jina, having cast off childhood, reached thirty years of age.

Then, on a certain occasion, the Jina, having attained spiritual urgency and recognized [worldly] faults, / surrounded by the Laukāntika [gods], the hero entered upon renunciation.

Then, for him who was rid of the eight karmas and engaged in the application of meditation, / omniscience arose, illuminating the entire world.

His blood had the color of milk, he was devoid of filth and sweat, and possessed a fragrant scent; / his body was endowed with marks and virtues, shining like the sun and completely pure;

his eyes were free from blinking, his nails and hair were fixed and smooth; / for a hundred yojanas all around, the region was free from pestilence.

Wherever he places his feet, there lotuses arise; / trees bend low under the weight of fruit, and the earth becomes rich with crops;

the earth becomes like a mirror, his speech here is Ardhamāgadhī, / and the directions are free from dust and particles, spotless as in autumn.

Wherever the lord of Jinas stays, there is a lion throne adorned with jewels, / the drum delightful with sound carrying a yojana, and a shower of divine flowers.

Thus that bull among sages, attended by the eight great miraculous phenomena, / the sun among Jinas wanders, awakening the lotus-like bhavya souls.

Accompanied by extraordinary glory, attended by the retinue of the troop, the Gaṇadharas, and the entire community, / Mahāvīra, wandering thus, reached the excellent Mount Vipula.

Knowing that the supreme Jina was on the great, excellent Mount Vipula, the king of gods / mounted Airāvaṇa, who resembled the peak of the Snowy Mountain;

his frontal globes were smeared with vermilion, beautified by an arranged garland of stars, / echoing with the sound of bells, with trickles of rutting fluid flowing on his temples;

fragrant with the sweet scent of ichor frequented by humming bees, / with rows of banners brushed by the wind from his restlessly moving ear-chowries;

surrounded by his Sāmānika gods, his glory sung aloud by Apsarases, / Indra came to Mount Vipula accompanied by all the gods and Asuras.

Seeing the supreme Jina, placing both hands upon his head, / Śakra, with joyful mind, began to praise the Jina:

"O Sun of omniscient rays! You alone have purely illuminated / this entire world of living beings, asleep in the dark blindness of delusion!

O you of great fame! In the ocean of worldly existence, with its clashing waves of the great waters of grief, / you are the boat, the conveyance for the bhavya merchants across!

O Lord! In the thicket of worldly existence, a dense forest of trees of grief from union and separation, / you have arisen as the caravan leader for those lost on wrong paths!

O Lord! Who is capable of enumerating your true virtues, / even if spoken of for a very long time, through crores of thousands of years?"

Having praised [the Jina], the king of the gods and the other four classes of god-assemblies, / having bowed with devotion, sat down in their respective places.

And the king who ruled Magadha, seeing the arrival of the gods into the presence of the Jina, / then set out from the royal city with a great body of soldiers.

And having reached that place, he descended from his magnificent, rutting elephant; / having praised the supreme lord of the Jinas, the lord of Magadha sat down.

[There was] an area constructed beforehand, an expanse of a circular enclosure measuring a yojana, / having its beauty created by wide gateways made of jewels and threefold ramparts.

Now there were two pavilions equipped with the eight great miracles, / and eight theatrical troupes danced at every gate.

There were sixteen excellent stepped wells filled with spotless water [holding] lotuses and water lilies; / in the middle of the four intermediate directions there were four in each.

And the Blessed One, the guru of the three worlds, sat comfortably on a splendid lion throne, / endowed with an umbrella above umbrellas, chowries, an aśoka tree, and an aureole.

In such a place, then, within the assembly of beings united with the foremost gods, / I will declare each and every pavilion.

In the first pavilion was the assembly of the nirgrantha great sages; / immediately next to it, in the second, was that of the wives of the gods beginning with Saudharma.

And in the third pavilion was the assembly of nuns of great virtues; / beyond that, in regular order, was the assembly of the daughters of the Jyotiṣka [gods].

Then [came that] of the wives of the Vyantaras, and the assembly of the wives of the Bhavanavāsins; / beyond that, in regular order, [that] of the foremost Jyotiṣka gods.

And in the pavilions were the assemblies of the Vyantara and Bhavanapati indras, / and then of the Kalpavāsin gods beginning with Saudharma.

And in another pavilion was the assembly of men and supreme monarchs; / moreover, in the northeastern division was the assembly of animals.

When the throng of kings gathered with the foremost gods had serene minds in this way, / Gautama bowed and questioned the Tīrthaṅkara about dharma and non-dharma.

Then, in the Ardhamāgadhī language, producing the welfare of all living beings, / the supreme lord of the Jinas, with a voice deep as a thundercloud, expounded the dharma:

"Substance is twofold: living (jīva) and non-living (ajīva)—so it is to be understood; / living beings are twofold: the liberated (siddha) and those transmigrating in saṁsāra.

Those who are perfected souls have infinite and incomparable bliss; / it is imperishable, immovable, endless, and always entirely free from distress.

And among them, those situated in saṁsāra are to be recognized as twofold: mobile and immobile; / both kinds are further twofold: fully developed (paryāpta) and undeveloped (aparyāpta).

Earth, water, fire, wind, and vegetation are declared to be immobile; / beginning with two-sensed beings, the mobile are twofold: endowed with mind (saṁjñin) and otherwise.

That which is non-living substance is divided into categories like the medium of motion (dharma), rest (adharma), and the like; / for the capable (bhavya) there is attainment of liberation, but the opposite is true for the incapable (abhavya).

By false belief, activities, non-abstinence, and passions combined with mental colorations (leśyās), / through these very [causes] the soul continually binds inauspicious karma.

Through knowledge, faith, and conduct combined with right austerity, / guarding mind, speech, and body, one acquires infinite merit.

Divided into eight kinds, karma has been declared in brief; / souls are bound and released by the modification of their mental states.

For souls fallen into saṁsāra and bewildered by attachment to sense-objects, / whatever momentary pleasure exists is in turn manifold suffering.

Even for as long as the duration of a wink of an eye that passes in the hell realms, / there is never any happiness for souls of sinful deeds.

Under taming, beating, binding, reproach, and other afflictions, / animal souls remain experiencing pain.

In union and separation, in gain and loss, and in passion and hatred, / human beings experience suffering, both physical and mental.

Even for gods of little power, on seeing the multitudes of gods of great majesty, / whatever suffering arises is then even heavier at the time of their fall.

In such a dreadful saṁsāra along the path of the four states of existence, / only with great difficulty does a soul, fallen away [from other states], obtain human birth.

Even when human birth is gained in tribes like Śabaras or families of low wealth, / it is with great difficulty that a soul's birth takes place in an exalted lineage.

Even when born in a noble family, [often] dwarf, deaf, blind, mute, crippled, or hunchbacked, / it is with great difficulty that a soul obtains a healthy form with five sound senses.

Even when a union of all beautiful things is attained, for one lacking merit, / deluded by greed and infatuation, no inclination toward dharma arises.

Even if an inclination toward dharma arises among false doctrines and true doctrines, / even so one is led astray again and does not obtain the dharma taught by the Jinas.

Having attained human birth, he whose mind is not always on dharma— / for that man, nectar resting in his own palm has indeed been lost.

Some steadfast men here, taking up conduct with full devotion, / with unblemished conduct, remain even unto supreme meditation.

Some others, having meditated on the twenty causes for becoming a Jina, / attain infinite bliss that shakes the three worlds.

Others, having performed severe austerity, with little of saṁsāra remaining, / passing through two or three births, attain unsurpassed nirvāṇa.

Having performed noble austerity and worshiped with the power of steadfastness, having died, / they become Ahamindras in the dwellings of the excellent Anuttara heavens.

Descending thence and enjoying the riches and pleasures of Baladevas and Cakravartins / for a very long time, practicing dharma, they attain perfection.

Others, having undertaken the duty of a mendicant, overcome by dreadful hardships, / fall from self-restraint, but still observe the minor vows (aṇuvratas).

Others are satisfied merely by the sight of the supreme Jinas; / they do not, even in a dream, take up renunciation or abstention.

With minds deluded by false belief, devoid of good conduct, lacking vows, engaged in household chores, / eager for the taste of sense-objects, they enter a most terrible battle [of saṁsāra].

Others, engaging in farming and other activities involving injury to diverse living beings, / go to hell, which has sharp, immense agony and is frightful.

Deceitful and crooked by nature, dealing with false scales and false measures, / having no faith in the dharma, they enter into animal wombs.

Those who follow upright religious conduct, whose passions are attenuated, who are naturally noble, / endowed with intermediate virtues, obtain human birth.

Those endowed with the minor vows and the major vows, or with the austerities of the spiritually immature, / become gods in heaven through the disposition of their mental states.

Pure in right faith, knowledge, and conduct, through their mutual interaction, / indifferent even toward their own bodies, having shaken off all karma, they attain perfection."

That imperishable, endless, unhindered, auspicious, supreme bliss— / liberation, freed from the eight karmas—the lion-like ascetics attain.

Living beings, bound by karma, flounder in the great ocean of the four realms of rebirth; / and no one can cross over, except by the boat of the Jina's doctrine.

In the great summer of saṃsāra, scorched by the intense heat of suffering, / the entire world of living beings was refreshed by the cool cloud of the Jina's words.

Then the gods, having heard the doctrine emerging from the lotus mouth of the supreme Jina, / with minds endowed with right belief, departed to their own realms.

The king, ruler of Magadha, having bowed with devotion to the Jina Vīra, / together with his entire retinue, arrived at the city of Kusāgranagara.

Meanwhile, at the close of day, the sun set; / the lotuses folded their petals, and separation came to the pairs of cakravāka birds.

Black darkness rose up in the sky, dirtying the paths of the directions; / it swallowed up the brightness of virtuous deeds, like the nature of the wicked.

The king too, in his own palace, illuminated by the radiant beams of jeweled lamps, / fell into a pleasant slumber on a bed covered with flower garlands.

While asleep, repeatedly in his dreams he saw the lord of supreme Jinas; / and then he earnestly asked him about a great doubt:

With the deep, rumbling sound of many drums like heavy thunder, / and the voices of bards praising him with hundreds of auspicious verses, the noble king arose.

He began to reflect: “Vīra proclaimed [a teaching] endowed with dharma; / [yet] this world faces the ruin of kings like universal monarchs and others.

Here, regarding the story of Padma, my mind conceives a supreme doubt: / how were the foremost Rākṣasas, though exceedingly strong, slain by monkeys?

Born in most exalted families through the doctrine of the supreme Jinas, / having mastered hundreds of Vidyās, they were heroes proud of their might.

In the treatises of worldly people it is heard that all the Rākṣasas, Rāvaṇa and the rest, / had their nourishment through eating fat, blood, flesh, and the like;

and that Rāvaṇa’s brother, immensely powerful, named Kumbhakarṇa, / fearless, sleeps continuously for six months upon his couch.

Even if his limbs are trampled by elephants as huge as massive mountains, / and jars of oil are poured into the ears of the sleeper,

he does not hear the loud beat of war-drums sounding right in front of him; / and that great being does not rise from his bed when the time is unfulfilled.

Then, having awakened, his body overtaken by terrible, ravenous hunger, / he swallows whatever is before him, such as elephants, buffaloes, and the like.

Having filled his belly with many gods, humans, elephants, and the like, / he climbs back onto his couch and, free from fear, sleeps for six months.

Another thing too is heard: how Indra was conquered in battle by Rāvaṇa, / bound with chains, and brought to the city of Laṅkā.

Who in the three worlds, including gods and asuras, could conquer Indra, / who can lift up Jambūdvīpa bounded by the ocean?

He whose lordly elephant is Airāvaṇa, and whose thunderbolt has an unerring blow— / by merely thinking of him, another would turn to a heap of ashes!

Just as a lion being slain by a deer, and an elephant put to flight by a dog, / so the poets have composed the Rāmāyaṇa with contrary meaning.

All of this is false, contradicted by proof and reason; / men who are learned in the world do not believe it.”

Thinking thus, eager to behold the Jina to remove his doubt, / the king then felt an ardent desire to set out.

The directions were filled with bees emerging from fine lotuses, exceedingly delightful with sweet humming sounds; / the wind swept through groves of trees, scattering flower pollen, and the pure sunlight shone with spotless rays.

Thus ends the second chapter of the Paümacariya, entitled 'The King Śreṇika’s Reflection.'