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Padma Puranaपद्मपुराण · Jain Ramayana
हिन्दी

Parva 111

Bhamandala Struck Dead by Lightning

Forever putting off renunciation for a few more days of pleasure, Bhamandala is killed in his sleep by a bolt of lightning.

Part of The Great Renunciations

Summary

Gautama tells Shrenika how Bhamandala, bound to his queens and the splendour of the Vidyadhara kingdom, keeps postponing diksha (initiation) and dreams instead of new conquests and pleasures. Hundreds of years pass like a single day, until lightning strikes him as he sleeps on the seventh storey of his palace. The chapter warns that wishing for dharma without practising it is like a bird with clipped wings longing to fly, and that death hovers unseen over every head. By the merit of his gifts to worthy recipients, Bhamandala is reborn in the highest bhogabhumi (land of enjoyment).

What happens

6 points

  1. Gautama, the first Ganadhara (chief disciple) of Mahavira, tells King Shrenika the story of Bhamandala, who clings to the splendour of the Vidyadhara kingdom and to sense pleasures as a honeybee clings to honey. He often thinks of taking Digambara diksha, but fears that the lotus forest of his wives' good fortune would wither, that their grief at losing him would cost him his own life, and that he has always lived in comfort.

  2. So he resolves to enjoy royal pleasures a few days more and take up austerity at the end of life, telling himself that whatever sin his pleasures bring he can burn away in a moment with the fire of meditation. He dreams of stripping his enemies of their kingdoms with a great army, ruling both the northern and southern Vidyadhara ranges, bringing every king under his command, and sporting with his queens on Mount Sumeru and other peaks, on slabs of emerald and other gems.

  3. Absorbed in such plans, thinking ‘I have done this, I will do that’, Bhamandala lets hundreds of years slip by like a single day and never senses that his life is running out. One day, as he sleeps on a beautiful bed on the seventh storey of his palace, lightning strikes and he dies on the spot.

  4. The text reflects that people make countless plans yet never act for their own soul's good, while death circles unseen overhead and wealth, youth and life are all unstable. Desires born of sense pleasures cause karmic bondage, but those who see this and give up possessions to seek the soul's welfare no longer wander in samsara (the cycle of rebirth).

  5. Reading thousands of scriptures is worthless if it brings no vairagya (detachment), while even a single page that brings peace and detachment deserves praise. Wishing for dharma without practising it is like a bird with clipped wings longing to fly, and if siddhahood came without effort no one would take the vows of a muni (monk).

  6. A householder who does not honour a sadhu (holy man) who comes to his door, who neither offers him food nor serves him, can win neither worldly nor final happiness, and one who idles away his life loses it like a jewel that had fallen into his palm. Bhamandala dies and, by the power of patradana (gifts to worthy recipients), is born in the highest bhogabhumi.