The Past Lives of Rama, Lakshmana, Sita, Ravana and Their Allies

Vibhishana, lord of the Vidyadharas, whose only ornament is his devotion to Rama, asks the Kevali what merit Rama earned in past lives to win such glory, why Ravana carried Sita off from the Dandaka forest though he understood dharma, artha, kama and moksha and knew right from wrong, and how so mighty a lord of the Vidyadharas came to be slain by Lakshmana. The Kevali replies that Rama and Lakshmana have been brothers through many births, and that the souls of Ravana and Lakshmana have been enemies just as long.

In a city of Bharata-kshetra lived the merchant Nayadatta, of modest means, and his wife Sunanda, whose sons were Dhanadatta, the soul of Rama, and Vasudatta, the soul of Lakshmana; Vasudatta's friend was the brahmin Yajnabali, the soul of Vibhishana. Another merchant, Sagaradatta, and his wife Ratnaprabha had a daughter Gunavati, the soul of Sita, and a younger son Gunavan, the soul of Bhamandala, who betrothed his sister to Dhanadatta. But the very rich merchant Shrikanta, the soul of Ravana, longed to marry Gunavati, and the greedy Gunavan, seeing Dhanadatta's small fortune, was ready to give her to Shrikanta instead.

When Yajnabali told Vasudatta of this, Vasudatta crept to Shrikanta's house at night in black clothes with a sword and struck him down, but the dying Shrikanta struck back, and both were reborn as deer in the Vindhya forest. Wicked townsfolk, using the brother's crime as a pretext, stopped Gunavati's marriage to Dhanadatta, who left home in grief and shame, while Gunavati, refusing any other husband, reviled the sages, died in arta dhyana (anguished brooding) and was born a doe in the same forest. The two deer fought and died over her, and through a long chain of births as boars, elephants, buffaloes, bulls, monkeys, rhinoceroses, jackals, dogs, sheep and creatures of water and land, she was always born the female of their kind and they always killed each other for her.

Worn out and thirsty, Dhanadatta came at sunset to some munis and begged for water; the sages kept silent, but a Jain layman gently told him that one should not drink even nectar at night, when tiny creatures cannot be seen, and Dhanadatta gave up food and water after dark, became a lay follower and after a samadhi-marana (peaceful, vowed death) was reborn a god in the first heaven, Saudharma. He was next born in Mahapura as Padmaruchi, son of the merchant Meru and his wife Dharini, and one day, seeing a bull dying by the road, he dismounted from his horse and out of compassion recited the Namokara mantra in its ear. The bull died hearing it and was born to Queen Shridatta as Vrishabhadhvaja, son of the sonless King Chhatracchhaya, remembering his life as a bull, and when grown he built a Jina temple tall as Kailasa where the bull had died, with a painting at the gate of a man reciting the mantra to a dying bull and a guard to report anyone who studied it.

When Padmaruchi came to worship and stood gazing at the picture, the guard told the prince, who rode up in state and learned that this was the man who had recited the mantra to him. Vrishabhadhvaja fell at his feet, praised him as a disciple praises his guru, saying that no parent or kinsman does such good and no mantra in the three worlds equals the Namokara, and offered him the whole kingdom and his own body in service. The two became devoted friends of right faith, kept the lay vows, built great Jina temples everywhere and, dying in samadhi, became gods in the second heaven; the bull's soul, after joys among gods and men, was in time born as Sugriva.

Padmaruchi's soul was next born as Nayanananda, son of King Nandishvara and Queen Kanakaprabha in Nandyavarta on Mount Vijayardha in the western Videha, enjoyed the splendour of a Vidyadhara emperor, became a great monk of severe austerity and rose to the fourth heaven. He was then born as Shrichandra, son of King Vipulavahana and Queen Padmavati in Kshemapuri in the eastern Videha, whose kingdom and treasuries grew day by day until he ruled the earth to the ocean for thousands of years. When the sage Samadhigupta came with a great sangha, Shrichandra went seven steps towards him in reverence and heard him teach the four anuyogas (branches of scripture), the four kinds of religious discourse and the transience of worldly splendour, fleeting as an evening glow, a water bubble, lightning or a rainbow.

Moved by the teaching, Shrichandra gave the kingdom to his son Dhvajakanti and took muni diksha under Samadhigupta, keeping the five great vows, bearing the twenty-two hardships, fasting for days and months together, eating once a day and owning nothing, not even the tip of a hair. At his death he became the Indra of the fifth heaven, whose splendour even the Saudharma Indra admired, and enjoyed its bliss for ten sagaras. So, the Kevali sums up, Rama's soul has passed through nine lives: Dhanadatta, a god of the first heaven, Padmaruchi, a god of the second heaven, King Nayanananda, a god of the fourth heaven, King Shrichandra, the Indra of the fifth heaven and now Rama, who will next attain moksha.

Shrikanta's soul was born in Mrinalakunda as Shambhu, grandson of King Vijayasena and son of Vajrakambu and Hemavati, while Vasudatta's soul became Shribhuti, the king's Jain priest, whose daughter Vedavati was Gunavati's soul, reborn after a she-elephant stuck in the mud on the bank of the Ganga heard the Namokara mantra from the kindly Vidyadhara Taranga. Shribhuti vowed never to give his daughter to a wrong believer, even one as rich as Kubera, so Shambhu killed him by night, and the priest, for his faith, rose to heaven; then Shambhu forced himself upon Vedavati. Trembling with rage, she vowed to be the cause of his death, took the vows of an aryika under Harikanta, wasted her body with severe austerities and was reborn in the fifth heaven, while the disgraced Shambhu, mocking sages and eating meat, sank through hell and animal births.

When some of his sins had worn away, Shambhu's soul was born as Prabhasakunda, son of the brahmin Kushadhvaja and Savitri, took muni diksha under the sage Vichitra and practised fierce austerities, but on a pilgrimage to Sammeda Shikhara, where twenty Tirthankaras attained nirvana, he saw the Vidyadhara Kanakaprabha's splendour in the sky and made a nidana (a binding wish) to win such glory through his penance. The Kevali laments the folly of selling the priceless jewel of austerity for a fistful of greens; Prabhasakunda became a god in the third heaven and then Ravana, son of Ratnashrava and Kekasi, lord of three khandas (divisions) of Bharata. Shribhuti's soul, for its part, became the Vidyadhara Punarvasu of Pratishthita city, also made a nidana through austerity, rose to the third heaven and was born as Lakshmana, who slew Ravana out of that ancient enmity, so that Vedavati's vow came true through Sita.

The Kevali lists the births still ahead: Lakshmana, after the third hell and lives as a householder's son, a god, a merchant, a being of the bhogabhumi (land of enjoyment), a god and a Chakravarti's son, will become both Tirthankara and Chakravarti in the Videha of Pushkarardha and attain moksha, and Ravana, after the same hell and a similar chain, will become a Tirthankara in Bharata-kshetra. Sita, after being the goddess Amritavati of the fifth heaven and Rama's queen, will be a Pratindra in the sixteenth heaven, a Chakravarti and an Ahamindra, and will finally be the first Ganadhara (chief disciple) of Ravana's soul when he becomes a Tirthankara, and so attain moksha. Gunavan became Bhamandala, born a twin with Sita to Queen Videha, Yajnabali became Vibhishana and the bull became Sugriva, which is why these three are bound to Rama by love from past lives.

Asked about Bali, the Kevali tells how a deer in Vrindavana that died hearing sages recite scripture was born as Ditta in the Airavata region, a devout lay follower who became a god of the second heaven, and then as Svayamprabha, son of Kantishoka and Ratnangini of the village Mattakokila near Vijayavati in the eastern Videha. As the sage Samyata he practised austerities for thousands of years, gained many riddhis (supernatural powers), climbed the upashama shreni (ladder of subsidence) and reached Sarvarthasiddhi, and after thirty-three sagaras as an Ahamindra he was born as Bali, son of Suryaraja. Out of compassion for living beings Bali would not fight Ravana but gave the kingdom to Sugriva and became a monk, and when Ravana tried to lift Kailasa he pressed it lightly with his toe to protect the Jina temples; he then took atonement from his guru, climbed the kshapaka shreni (ladder of destruction) and attained nirvana from Kailasa.

Sita was slandered, the Kevali explains, because she had reviled sages as Gunavati, and as Vedavati had told the villagers of Mandalika that she saw the sage Sudarshana sitting alone with an aryika who was really his own sister; the sage vowed to fast until the false charge was cleared, the town deities made Vedavati confess before everyone, and because she begged his forgiveness, Sita's name too was cleared in the end. So one should never speak of another's faults, even true ones, but hide others' faults and one's own virtues and confess one's own faults to the guru. Hearing this, the assembly gives up enmity, many kings become monks or lay followers, wrong believers turn to right faith, all praise Vibhishana for prompting the tale, and Indras and kings hymn Sakalabhushana, declaring his name, ornament of all, to be true.