Sukaushala Takes Diksha and Attains the Goal Through a Terrible Ordeal

Years later the monk Kirtidhara, forbearing as the earth and walking with eyes on four cubits of ground to spare living beings, came into Ayodhya to break a long fast, but his former queen Sahadevi, fearing her son would renounce on seeing him, ordered the gatekeepers to drive out these naked, dirty ascetics who ruin households, never to let her simple, tender-hearted son Sukaushala see one, and to admit no monk at all on pain of punishment. Declaring that she had no respect for the Digambara garb since this monk had heartlessly abandoned his infant, she had the cruel gatekeepers drive him out with canes and harsh words, expel the other monks who had come for alms, and bar monks from the city lest her son hear the dharma.

Seeing her master so dishonoured, Sukaushala's nurse Vasantalata wept, and Sukaushala told her she was more than a mother to him, since his mother had only borne him while her milk had nourished him, that only one who wished to die would hurt her, and that he would slight even his own mother if she were the one. Vasantalata told him that his father, who had crowned him as an infant and become a monk, had come for alms that day and been driven out on his mother's orders, that monks were barred so that he would not renounce, and that in his family it was the custom for fathers to crown their sons and renounce, and no monk had ever left his house unfed.

Sukaushala came down from the palace, left behind his parasol, chowries, vehicles and every royal emblem, and ran barefoot on feet softer than lotuses, asking everyone whether they had seen the monk, with his attendants racing behind, until he found his father seated on a rock in the forest. With tears in his eyes and joined hands, ashamed that such a sage had been driven out, he said that like a man asleep in a burning house he had slept in the delusion of samsara and the monk had woken him, and begged for Digambara diksha.

As the vassals and his pregnant queen Vichitramala arrived grieving with the citizens, Sukaushala declared that he gave the kingdom to the son in Vichitramala's womb; then, breaking the noose of hope and the cage of affection, he cast off all outer and inner possessions, plucked out his hair and took diksha from his father Kirtidhara, accepting the five great vows, five samitis (rules of careful conduct) and three guptis (restraints). His mother Sahadevi died in arta dhyana (anguished brooding) and was reborn as a lioness, while father and son, never staying long in one place, wandered together as monks.

When the rains came, the season in which monks do not travel, the two spent the four months of chaturmasa (the rainy-season retreat) fasting under a tree in a cremation ground, now in the lotus posture, now in kayotsarga or virasana, amid lions, tigers, bears, jackals, snakes and vultures, half-burnt corpses, ground white with skulls and wandering ghosts. After the full moon of Kartika they set out to worship the holy places and, walking with careful eyes, approached the city to break their fast, when the lioness that had been Sahadevi, her mane red with blood, tail raised over her head and red tongue lolling, saw Sukaushala and sprang at him.

Both monks stood unmoving in kayotsarga as she tore Sukaushala's body with her claws, and Gautama marvels at a world where a mother devours her own son; yet, firmer than Mount Sumeru, Sukaushala attained Kevala Jnana (omniscience) through shukla dhyana (pure meditation) and became an antakrit kevali (one who attains omniscience and liberation in the very moment of an ordeal), and Indra and the gods celebrated his omniscience and liberation. Kirtidhara Muni then told the lioness that she had been Sukaushala's loving mother Sahadevi and had torn her own son apart; remembering her past life, she took the householder's vows, renounced food unto death and was reborn in heaven, and Kirtidhara himself attained Kevala Jnana and was worshipped by the gods.

Sukaushala's queen Vichitramala bore a son with auspicious marks; because her body shone like gold while he was in the womb he was named Hiranyagarbha, and as king he seemed to bring back the age of Rishabhadeva, marrying Amritavati, daughter of King Hari. Seeing a single white hair in his mirror, which he called the messenger of death, he gave the kingdom to Amritavati's son Naghosha and became a Digambara monk under Vimala Muni; Naghosha was so named because from the time he was conceived no sinful word was spoken.

When Naghosha went to conquer the north, leaving Ayodhya to his queen Simhika, the southern kings attacked, and Simhika, skilled in arms and learning, routed them, subdued the southern vassals and returned in triumph; but Naghosha, back from the north, decided that no chaste woman of good family could be so fierce and stripped her of the rank of chief queen, leaving her in poverty. Later, when he lay burning with a fever no physician could cure, Simhika gave water from her own hand to the priest before the ministers and vassals, declaring that if she was chaste in mind, speech and body it would cure the king, and at its touch the fever vanished amid a heavenly voice crying ‘Blessed!’ and a rain of flowers; Naghosha restored her as chief queen and later, following the custom of his line, crowned her son Saudasa and became a monk.

Saudasa became a sinful meat-eater, though no one of his line had ever eaten forbidden food, and craving meat even during the holy Ashtahnika festival, he overrode his cook's protests, so the cook brought the body of a child who had died that day, cooked it with spices and served it; delighted, the king learned the truth after granting the cook immunity and ordered such meat daily, so the cook handed out laddus (sweets) to children and seized whichever child lagged behind. As children vanished the people discovered the truth, banished the king together with his cook and crowned Saudasa's son Simharatha, born of Queen Kanakaprabha.

Wandering and shunned everywhere, Saudasa ate the bodies of dead children left in cremation grounds, as a lion eats men, and so became known as Simha Saudasa; in the south he met a monk, heard the dharma and took the householder's vows. When the king of Mahapura died without a son and the state elephant was sent to choose a ruler, it brought back Simha Saudasa, who ruled justly; when his son Simharatha refused to bow to a great sinner, he marched on him while the people fled in fear of being eaten, defeated him in battle, then gave him both kingdoms and became a monk in the forest.

From Simharatha the Ikshvaku line passed in turn through Brahmaratha, Chaturmukha, Hemaratha, Satyaratha, Prithuratha, Payoratha, Dridharatha, Suryaratha, Mandhata, Virasena, Prithvimanyu, Kamalabandhu, Ravimanyu, Vasantatilaka, Kuberadatta, the renowned Kunthubhakta, Shataratha, Viraratha, Dviradaratha, Simhadamana, Hiranyakashipu, Punjasthala and Kakusthala to Raghu, all mighty kings who crowned their sons and renounced the world. Gautama tells Shrenika that in this line, descended from Rishabhadeva, many great kings down to Ramachandra took the monk's vows and attained liberation, others became Ahamindras or gods, and sinners were rare.

In Ayodhya Raghu's son Anaranya ruled so gloriously that cities sprang up even in the forests, and his virtuous queen Prithvimati bore him two sons, Anantaratha and Dasharatha. Anaranya and Sahasrarashmi, lord of Mahishmati, were close as the Indras of Saudharma and Ishana and had promised to tell each other when either renounced; when Sahasrarashmi, defeated by Ravana, became a monk and sent word, Anaranya gave the kingdom to Dasharatha, took diksha with his son Anantaratha from the monk Abhayasena and attained liberation, while Anantaratha, wandering free of possessions and unshaken by the twenty-two hardships (parishahas), became famous as Anantavirya.

King Dasharatha married Kaushalya, also called Aparajita, the peerless daughter of King Kaushala and Queen Amritaprabha of Darbhasthala; Sumitra, daughter of King Subandhutilaka and Queen Mitra of the great city of Kamalasankula; and Suprabha, daughter of a king named Maharaja. Holding right faith dearer than a jewel and kingship as fleeting as straw, he restored, as good as new, the damaged Jina temples built by Bharata Chakravarti and worshipped with jewels the sites of the Tirthankaras' kalyanakas (auspicious events), for, Gautama says, Dasharatha's soul had earned great merit and enjoyed heavenly splendour in a former life.