The Renunciation of Lakshmana's Eight Princes

King Kanchanaratha of Kanchanasthana and his queen Shatahrada have two beautiful daughters, and for their svayamvara the king sends letters by messengers to many kings, Vidyadharas and land-dwelling rulers. His first envoys go to Ayodhya asking that the princes be sent quickly, and Rama and Lakshmana gladly send all their sons in great splendour.

With Lavana and Ankusha in front, the brothers, full of love for one another, fly to Kanchanapura in aerial chariots with many Vidyadharas and a large army, and princes from both Vidyadhara ranges are also seated in the hall. The princesses Mandakini and Chandravaktra, bathed and adorned, arrive on a chariot like Lakshmi herself, and an attendant describes each suitor's land, lineage, wealth, virtues and banner, whether monkey, lion, bull, elephant or another.

Every prince longs for the princesses, but both are captivated by Lavana and Ankusha: Mandakini places the garland on Lavana and Chandravaktra on Ankusha. The worthiest princes praise the choice, saying the maidens have rightly chosen Rama's two handsome and virtuous sons, who alone are fit for them.

Lakshmana's eight princes, sons of Vishalya and his seven other chief queens, live in close affection with their two hundred and fifty brothers like planets among the stars. All the other brothers flare up against Rama's sons, asking what quality they, the radiant and gifted sons of the Narayana, lack that the maidens passed them over for Sita's sons, and they even prepare for battle and sound the war drums.

The eight elder brothers calm them as mantras tame serpents. The brothers then reflect that the maidens have wed their uncle's sons, their own elder brothers, and so are now their sisters-in-law and like mothers to them, and that it is folly to grow angry over women; their resentment turns to contentment and goodwill toward Lavana and Ankusha.

The episode awakens vairagya (detachment) in the eight princes, who laugh at the idea that winning a wife is anything great and declare that only those who take Jina diksha are truly blessed, since sense pleasures are as hollow as a banana stem. Having gained a human birth in the karmabhumi (land of action), in an Arya land and a noble family, they regret the days already wasted and resolve to make life fruitful through the religion of the Vitaraga (the passionless Jina).

One of them recalls sitting as a child in his father's lap while Lakshmana taught the assembled kings. Human birth is the rarest of the four states of existence; a mithyadrishti (one of false belief) who gives charity reaches a bhogabhumi (land of enjoyment), a samyagdrishti (one of right faith) reaches heaven through charity and austerity and in time moksha (liberation), pure self-knowledge brings moksha in this very life, and violence and other sins lead to the lower births.

The eight go to their father, bow and with folded hands ask leave to take diksha, calling the world as fleeting as a flash of lightning and sense pleasures as dreadful as the hood of a venomous snake. Lakshmana, overcome with love, embraces them, kisses their heads and in a choking voice begs them to stay in palaces like the peaks of Kailasa with gem-paved courtyards, to enjoy life with queens skilled in the vina, flute and mridanga, and to rule the earth a few days more rather than leave him and their mothers in grief.

The princes answer that they have had endless mothers and fathers in past births and that the bond of affection leads to hell. A householder's mind is soiled by the home as a white cloth is soiled by the body, and worldly beings are like fish in the pond of the home, lured by the bait of sense objects and caught on the hook of disease in the net of Death the fisherman. Describing the ocean of samsara with its crocodiles of delusion and its undersea fire of losing what is dear and meeting what is unwanted, they ask why their wise father would cast them back into the pit of household life.

Regarding even the rule of three khandas (regions) as momentary, the eight leave home and become Digambara munis (sky-clad monks) under the sage Mahabala in the Mahendrodaya garden. Walking with care, forbearing and master of their senses, they wear away karma through the twelve kinds of austerity, attain Kevala Jnana, destroy the remaining karmas and become Siddhas, and Gautama tells Shrenika that whoever reads or hears their story with devotion is freed of all sin.