The Past Lives of Lavana and Ankusha

Hearing Rama's story, King Shrenika wonders how Lavana and Ankusha bore their mother's loss when Sita gave up her love for them, for if even such mighty and meritorious men must suffer parting from what they love and meeting with what they dread, what of others? He asks the Ganadhara (chief disciple) to tell him their story, and Indrabhuti Gautama begins with King Rativardhana and Queen Sudarshana of Kakandi and their two sons, Priyankara and Hitankara.

The king's minister Sarvagupta, who bore the burden of the realm, was a traitor plotting the king's death, and his wicked wife Vijayavati desired the king; when the chaste Rativardhana, who shunned other men's wives, would not be ensnared, she warned him that the minister meant to kill him, and when he did not believe her, she told her husband that the king meant to kill him and carry her off. Sarvagupta withdrew the king's guards and set fire to the royal bedchamber at night, but the ever-watchful Rativardhana escaped through a secret tunnel with his queen and both sons and went in secret towards Kashi, ruled by his loyal vassal Kashyapa of the Ugra dynasty.

Seated on the stolen throne, Sarvagupta sent an envoy ordering Kashyapa to come and bow to him, but Kashyapa replied that one should not even speak a traitor's name, let alone serve a man who had killed his master, a woman and children by fire, and vowed to cut off his head before all the people. Sarvagupta besieged Kashi with many kings and a great army, and Kashyapa, refusing any peace, resolved to fight.

Rativardhana reached the forest outside Kashi by night and sent a doorkeeper to Kashyapa, who cried again and again, ‘Where is the Maharaja?’, hurried out with his family, worshipped his lord with lamps, fell at his feet and led him into the decorated city amid cheers. Kashyapa then sent word to the besieging warriors that their true master was alive and asked whether it was right to fight him for a traitor; they all deserted Sarvagupta, who was captured in battle, and Rativardhana regained Kakandi amid great rejoicing and honoured Kashyapa, who returned to rule Kashi like a guardian of the world.

Shunned by everyone, Sarvagupta became as good as dead and blamed his wife for setting him against the king, and Vijayavati, hating him and lamenting that she was now neither the king's nor her husband's, performed false austerities and was reborn as a Rakshasi. Weary of the world, the body and its pleasures, Rativardhana took the vows of a muni under Subhanu Swami, and though the Rakshasi tormented him, he attained Kevala Jnana (omniscience) through pure meditation.

Before that life, Priyankara and Hitankara had been Sudeva and Vasudeva, sons of the brahmin Damadeva and his wife Shyamali in that same city, who with their wives Priyangu and Vishva gave food to the sage Shritilaka; by the merit of that gift they were all born in the Uttarakuru bhogabhumi (land of enjoyment), lived for three palyas (vast measures of time) and became gods in the second heaven. Descending from there, they were born as Priyankara and Hitankara, became monks, rose to the Graiveyaka heavens and were born at last as Lavana and Ankusha, great souls destined for liberation in this very life.

Queen Sudarshana, their mother in that life, loved her sons deeply and died brooding in grief over the loss of husband and sons; after wandering through many births she earned merit and was born as the kshullaka (junior monk) Siddhartha, devoted to dharma and skilled in every vidya, who out of that old affection taught Lavana and Ankusha so well that not even the gods could defeat them. Gautama tells Shrenika that this world is hollow, that every soul has had countless mothers and fathers, and that all worldly ties are false and only the bond of dharma is true, so the wise should strive for dharma alone and, taking up the austerities the Jina taught, go to the city of liberation.