The Fire Becomes a Lake and Rama Hears the Dharma from the Kevali

Gazing at the pit, Rama is torn with anguish: Sita, a mine of virtues adorned with chastity and fragrant with vows like a garland of malati flowers, will burn to ash at the touch of fire, and it would have been better had she never been born in Janaka's house. He knows she is a supreme shravika (Jain laywoman) whose firm right faith frees her from the seven fears, of this world, the next, death, pain, accident, helplessness and thieves, so she will surely enter; he ignored the people and the kshullaka Siddhartha when they begged him, and now that all are silent he can find no pretext to stop her. He reflects that she alone knew his mind and never once turned bitter despite his harsh punishment, and now, crushed by slander and separation, she is going to die in the fire.

The flames leap up, tears stream from every eye, and smoke darkens the sky like spreading clouds until the sun is hidden, as if it could not bear to watch Sita's ordeal, while sparks turn every quarter golden like a doomsday twilight. Sita rises with an unshaken mind, stands in kayotsarga (motionless meditation), praises the twenty-four Tirthankaras from Rishabha onward, bows to the five Parameshthis (supreme beings), meditates on Munisuvratanatha, the twentieth Tirthankara and jewel of the Hari dynasty in whose era she was born, and asks forgiveness of every living being, of Rama and the kings, and of all the people. She declares that never in mind, word or deed, not even in a dream, has she desired any man but Rama: if she lies, or is a sinful, faithless woman, let the flames burn her to ash at once, and if she is a true sati keeping the anuvratas (lesser vows), let them not burn her. Reciting the Namokara mantra, she steps into the fire.

By the power of her vow of chastity the fire becomes water as clear and cool as crystal, as if a lake like the Ganga had burst up through the earth from below; fuel and sparks vanish, lotuses bloom and bees hum. But the water churns with foam and deep whirlpools, roars like mridanga drums and rises from knee to waist to chest, then to the throat and over the heads of the onlookers, terrifying land-dwellers and Vidyadharas alike. Lifting up their children, the people cry out to Sita as Devi, Lakshmi, Sarasvati and Mother, pure-minded as a muni, to have mercy and save them, and at their cry the water halts through the compassion of the great sati.

The water grows calm, lotuses of many kinds open, and the pool, like a bride, touches the mother's tender feet with its hands of waves, while swans and chakravaka birds call and steps of gems and gold and banks of emerald appear. In the middle rises a thousand-petalled lotus on which the gods set a throne bright as the moon's disc, and goddesses seat Sita on it and serve her as she sits pondering the fleeting joys of the world, looking like Shachi herself. Gods shower flowers of the kalpavriksha (wish-fulfilling tree), drums, vinas, conches and cymbals sound, Vidyadharas dance, and the gods hail the daughter of King Janaka and queen of the Baladeva, blessing her unbroken chastity, depth, patience, calm, longing for liberation, faith and compassion.

Lavana and Ankusha swim through the water to their mother, stand on either side of her and bow, and she lays her hands on their heads. Rama, seeing Maithili like Lakshmi seated on a lotus, shining like gold purified in fire, comes to her with great love and begs forgiveness: he wronged her in ignorance out of fear of slander and will never again do anything to pain her. She will be the crown of his eight thousand queens, her every wish will be granted at once, and together they will roam the earth and fly in the Pushpaka vimana to worship at Sumeru and the Jina shrines across the two and a half continents.

Janaki replies that neither he nor the people are at fault: her suffering came from the rising of her own past inauspicious karma, she is angry with no one, and by his grace she has already enjoyed heavenly pleasures in his house. Now she wishes to end the female state so that she need never be born a woman again, for sense pleasures are fleeting and lead to hell and nigoda (the lowest form of life), and through endless births in the eighty-four lakh yonis (forms of birth) she has known only sorrow. Karma bound in laughter must be paid for in tears, and son, husband and family all serve their own ends, so she will take aryika diksha as the Jina teaches, and she asks his pardon for any disrespect she ever showed him, even in jest.

With hands soft as new ashoka leaves she plucks out her hair, dark as sapphire, glossy, fine, curling and long, and lays it before Rama, who swoons at the sight and falls to the ground. While everyone tends him, Sita, purified by fire, goes to the aryika Prithvimati and takes the diksha of an aryika (nun) with supreme detachment, keeping only a single sari and giving up every other possession, and so becomes worthy of the world's reverence.

Revived with sandal water and palm-leaf fans, Rama looks in all ten directions and, not finding Sita, feels his heart go empty; he rides on an elephant towards her under parasol and chowries like Indra among the gods, crying that it is better for loved ones to die than to be parted, that the gods did well to save Sita but wrong to take her from him, and that if they do not give back his queen he will make war on them. Lakshmana cannot console him, but when Rama sees from afar the gandhakuti (preaching seat) of Sakalabhushana Kevali, radiant beyond many suns and attended by Indra and the gods, he grows calm, dismounts, circles it three times, bows and sits in the assembly of men. There Rama beside the Kevali looks like a kalpavriksha beside Sumeru, Lakshmana in his ornaments like a dark cloud lit by lightning, Shatrughna like Kubera, Lavana and Ankusha like the moon and sun, and the aryika Sita, unadorned in her single sari, like the sun's own image grown serene.

The muni Abhayaghosha, foremost of the sages present, asks how knowing the pure self brings Kevala Jnana, and Gautama tells Shrenika he can give only a drop from the ocean of the Kevali's answer. The self, the Kevali teaches, is formless consciousness made of faith, knowledge and bliss, while matter, the media of motion and rest, space and time are only objects of knowing; the universe is a tiny part of infinite space and holds three worlds, with seven hells, from Ratnaprabha down to Mahatamahprabha, below the middle world. Some hells are so hot that an iron ball the size of Sumeru would melt, others so cold that it would freeze; their beings live out lives of up to one, three, seven, ten, seventeen, twenty-two and thirty-three sagaras (oceans of time) with no untimely death, thrown into fire pits and the caustic Vaitarani river, cut by sword-leaved trees, boiled in oil and made to drink molten copper.

Those who kill, lie, steal, lust after others' spouses, hoard and indulge the senses fall there, and down to the third hell the Asurakumara gods add to the torment by reminding them how they served false gods and gurus who keep wives and weapons, eat meat, drink and offer animal and human sacrifices, a service as useless as a boat of stone; eating meat, honey or food at night, betrayal, ingratitude, burning villages or forests, cruelty and disrespect to parents and gurus all lead to hell. The Kevali urges care for the six kinds of living beings and faith in the six substances, seven tattvas (realities) and nine padarthas (categories), and explains the sevenfold predication of syadvada, souls capable of liberation, near or distant, and those incapable of it, the eighty-four lakh forms of birth and the five kinds of body. He then describes the middle world of countless rings of continents and oceans around Jambudvipa and Mount Sumeru, where humans live only in the two and a half continents and dharma and moksha are found only in the karmabhumis (lands of action), and the upper world of sixteen heavens, the Graiveyakas, Anudishas and five Anuttaras, crowned by the Siddhaloka where the liberated dwell.

Rama asks what the bliss of the Siddhas (liberated souls) is like, and the Kevali answers that the three worlds hold no true happiness, for sense pleasure, even for an Indra or a Chakravarti, is like honey smeared on a sword's edge, whereas the Siddhas, free of body, senses and mind, enjoy natural, unending bliss. Gather the joys of all Tirthankaras, Chakravartis, Indras and Ahamindras of past, present and future, he says, and they would not equal a single instant of a Siddha's bliss, which even sages with four kinds of knowledge cannot fully know. When Rama begs to be carried across the ocean of samsara (worldly existence), the Kevali names right faith, right knowledge and right conduct as the path, explaining the five flaws that stain faith, such as doubt, craving and disgust at a monk's body, the conduct of monks, and the duties of householders, who keep the anuvratas and offer food to the fourfold sangha (community) with ninefold devotion.

There is no dharma without compassion, the Kevali says: those who kill in the name of religion are bound for lower births, monks who keep cattle, money or perfumes are no monks, and neither the hard austerities of wrong believers nor suicide by fire, water or a fall from a mountain can free anyone, while one with right faith reaches moksha within fifteen births, eight human and seven divine. Rama, bowing, confesses that he could give up all his queens and the whole earth but not his love for Lakshmana, and begs to be lifted out of that ocean of affection. The Kevali tells him not to grieve, for as the Baladeva he will rule for a time with his brother the Vasudeva and then take the Jina's vows and surely attain Kevala Jnana; Rama's face blossoms with joy, and gods, men, Indras and kings, learning that he is in his last body and will be liberated in this very life, praise and honour him with deep devotion.