The Nirvana of the Vidyadhara Indra

Grieving for their lord, Indra's warriors bring his father Sahasrara, an udasina shravaka (a detached lay votary), to Lanka to plead for him; Ravana seats Sahasrara on the throne and sits below him. When Sahasrara and the four lokapalas ask for Indra's release, Ravana agrees, jesting that the lokapalas should sweep Lanka clear of thorns and pebbles and Indra sprinkle its ground with scented water and adorn it with five-coloured flowers.

The lokapalas hang their heads, but Sahasrara gently accepts, saying that if elders like Ravana did not instruct the world, people would stray into injustice. Delighted, Ravana calls Sahasrara a father to him and Indra his fourth brother, with whom he will rid the earth of enemies, and offers to leave Indra his Indra-title, his lokapalas and both rows of Vidyadhara realms, with more if he wishes, inviting Sahasrara to live in Rathanupura or Lanka as he pleases.

Sahasrara blesses the parents who bore such a son and praises Ravana's courage, forgiveness, generosity and humility, but says one's birthplace is like a mother and his kin and subjects await him; Ravana sends for Indra, releases him to his father and escorts them far with great courtesy. Back on Vijayardha the kingdom and lokapalas are restored, yet Indra and the lokapalas cannot lift their faces for shame before their own people.

Indra loses all love for Rathanupura, his queens, gardens, lokapalas and subjects, even for his own body, and gives up laughter, music and dance. Sitting in the Jina temple at the heart of his palace, tall as a peak of Gandhamadana, he reflects that his fall is the fruit of his own karma, not Ravana's doing, and that Ravana, acting as an enemy, has come as a friend to awaken him to the great vows.

The charana muni Nirvanasangama, holder of four kinds of knowledge, cannot fly over the temple and descends to worship; Indra bows, condemns himself and asks his past lives. The muni tells of Kulavati of Shikhapada, ugly, diseased and living on others' leftovers, who at death renounced all four kinds of food for one muhurta (48 minutes) and became Shiladhara, a goddess of a Kimpurusha god; then of Sahasrabhaga, son of the Brahmin Gomukha and Dharani of Ratnanagara, who gained right faith and took the lay vows; and then of a god in Shukra, the ninth heaven.

Next came Samantavardhana, son of the minister Mani and Gunavali of Ratnasanchaya in the Videha region, who renounced the world with his father, bore the twenty-two parishahas (hardships) and became an Ahamindra in the Navagraiveyaka heavens; and finally Indra, born in Rathanupura to the Vidyadhara king Sahasrara and Queen Hridayasundari, whose old habits drew him to Indra-like splendour.

The muni reveals why he fell: at the svayamvara of Ahilya, daughter of King Vahnivega and Queen Vegavati of Arinjayapura, she chose Anandamala of Chandravarta over Indra and all the Vidyadharas, and Indra grew jealous. When Anandamala later became a muni and stood in kayotsarga by the Hamsavali river, Indra mocked him for abandoning Ahilya; the muni's brother, the muni Kalyana, warned that Indra would be ruined, and only Indra's wife Sarvashri, a samyagdrishti devoted to the sadhus, saved him from being burned to ashes by calming Kalyana. His defeat is the fruit of that insult, Ravana merely its instrument, for no sin equals scorn of a muni.

Amazed, Indra thanks the muni for this knowledge, gives his kingdom to his son and takes Jina diksha with many sons, the lokapalas and other kings, practising austerities as wholeheartedly as he had once enjoyed pleasures; after long tapas, through shukla dhyana (pure meditation) he destroys his karmas and attains nirvana. Gautama tells Shrenika that no one should ever, in the pride of wealth, mock or slight the gurus, for karma bound in jest must later be suffered in tears.