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Padma Puranaपद्मपुराण · Jain Ramayana
हिन्दी

Parva 100

The Birth and Boyhood of Lavana and Ankusha

In Pundarikapura Sita gives birth to twin sons, Anangalavana and Madanankusha, who are taught every art and weapon by the kshullaka Siddhartha and grow into peerless princes.

Part of Lavana, Ankusha and the Ordeal of Fire

Summary

While Rama and Lakshmana enjoy their rule in Ayodhya, Sita carries her children in Pundarikapura under King Vajrajangha's protection, her cravings already showing heroic sons: she looks at her face in a sword, loves the twang of a bowstring and bows to none but the Jina. On the full moon of Shravana she bears twins, named Anangalavana and Madanankusha, whose childhood games make her forget all her sorrows. The kshullaka Siddhartha, who visits the temples of Mount Sumeru three times a day, accepts food from Sita and stays to teach the boys arms, scriptures and divine weapons, and they grow into princes before whom all kings bow.

What happens

7 points

  1. Ayodhya grows thin with grief for Sita, while in Pundarikapura Sita grows pale and frail with the weight of pregnancy, her eyes white and sweet as the ocean of milk. She dreams of great elephants bathing her with water from lotus cups and wakes to her companions' cries of victory; her household obeys her instantly, yet she shines with a fierce brilliance, for heroic sons are in her womb.

  2. Her cravings reveal the warriors to come: with jewelled mirrors beside her she looks at her face in the blade of a sword, the sound of vina, flute and drum does not please her but the twang of a bow being strung does, the sight of a lion delights her, and her head bows before no one but the Jina.

  3. After nine months, on the full moon of Shravana under the Shravana star, Sita gives birth to twin sons. All Pundarikapura rejoices as if the city itself were dancing, King Vajrajangha holds a great birth festival and gives the needy whatever they wish, and the boys are named Anangalavana and Madanankusha. Mustard seeds scattered on their heads for protection look like sparks of their future glory.

  4. The twins, golden-bodied with nails like mirrors, grow like the waxing moon, charming everyone with their lisping words and smiles. They are never apart even in play: they call out to their mother, climb into her lap together, pull each other up beside her, walk holding her fingers and eat from her hand, and watching them Sita forgets all her sorrow, though her heart aches whenever one of them stumbles and cries.

  5. When they are old enough to study, the kshullaka Siddhartha comes to Vajrajangha's palace: a renowned soul who by the power of a vidya worships the shrines of Mount Sumeru at dawn, noon and dusk, pure-minded as a sage, owning only a torn cloth, keeping the lesser vows and master of every art. Sita, devoted to Jain renunciants as to her own brothers, rises, greets him and serves him pure food. Skilled in the eightfold science of omens, he tells her not to grieve, since she has such sons.

  6. Out of affection for the princes Siddhartha stays some days and quickly makes them masters of weapons and scriptures, of every art, of wielding divine weapons and of countering the divine weapons of foes, for a wise pupil makes the teacher's work easy as sunlight makes things plain to those who have eyes. Endowed with adamantine bodies, the Shrivatsa mark on their chests and destined to be liberated in this life, the brothers are as alike as the moon and sun, inseparable as fire and wind.

  7. So proud is their spirit that they cannot bear even the sun passing over their heads or a king in a painting not bowing to them; they call the sun weak because it rises and sets, the wind feeble because it is fickle, the Himalaya unworthy because its roots are thorny and the ocean mean because it is salty. Yet they speak sweetly, never covet another's wealth or wife and steal only hearts, so that even enemies become friends on seeing them, and they sport in Pundarikapura as the Baladeva and the Narayana sport in Ayodhya.