Lord Rishabhadeva’s Wanderings in Search of Alms

After six months of meditation Rishabhadeva set out for food, but no one knew how to feed a monk; people offered clothes, jewels, elephants, horses, chariots and even maidens, and each time he returned to the forest, so that from his initiation he went thirteen months and nine days without food.

In Hastinapura King Somaprabha and his younger brother Shreyamsa came before him; at the sight of the Lord, Shreyamsa remembered his past life and the right way to feed a muni, circled him, washed his feet and wiped them with his own hair, worshipped him with the eight substances, and with the ninefold devotion offered cool, sweet sugarcane juice from jewelled pitchers, the Lord’s first meal after a year-long fast.

The gods showered the five wonders: a rain of jewels and of five-coloured flowers, a cool fragrant breeze, the sound of drums, and a heavenly voice crying “Blessed the recipient, blessed the gift, blessed the giver, King Shreyamsa”; so the way of giving became known, and Bharata praised Shreyamsa and gave him the title Danavira (hero of giving).

After a thousand years of austerity the Lord destroyed delusion by shukla dhyana (pure meditation) and attained Kevala Jnana; the eight pratiharyas (divine splendours) appeared, among them the halo, the Ashoka tree, the jewelled lion throne and the triple umbrella, and he travelled with 84 Ganadharas, chief among them Vrishabhasena, and 84,000 munis, ending famine for a hundred yojanas around wherever he went.

His sermon taught that dharma is the only refuge, that there is no friend like dharma and no dharma like compassion, and that monks lacking true faith become lowly gods and then animals; dharma has two forms only, the householder’s twelve vows (five anuvratas, three gunavratas and four shikshavratas, closing with a peaceful death) and the monk’s thirteenfold conduct (five great vows, five samitis and three guptis), whose only clothing is the directions. Many took right faith, lay vows or monkhood.

Bharata became Chakravarti (universal emperor) of the six continents, ruling from Ayodhya with nine treasures, fourteen jewels each guarded by a thousand gods, 3 crore cows, 1 crore ploughs, 84 lakh elephants and as many chariots, 18 crore horses, 32,000 crowned kings and 96,000 queens, chief among them Subhadra, who was served by a thousand gods; all his brothers became munis and attained moksha.

Bahubali of Podanapura, son of the other queen, refused to obey: “We too are sons of Rishabhadeva; whose command should we accept?” Without armies the brothers fought by gaze, in water and in wrestling, and Bahubali won all three; Bharata hurled his chakra (discus), but it could not harm Bahubali’s final body and returned to Bharata’s hand, leaving him ashamed.

Bahubali gave up the world and stood motionless in kayotsarga (standing meditation) for a year while vines wrapped his body and snakes made burrows around him; then he attained Kevala Jnana, Bharata came to worship him, and he became the first of the great souls of this avasarpini (descending age) to reach moksha.

On the origin of the Brahmins: having heard from the Lord that munis take only faultless food in others’ homes, Bharata resolved to honour the vow-keeping lay people, ‘younger brothers of the munis’; he invited all the townsfolk and sowed sprouts of urad and mung in his courtyard, turned away those who walked over the green shoots, and led those who held back by a clear path, gave them the sacred thread, food, clothes and gifts, and established them as Brahmins.

When some grew proud and others greedy, the minister Matisamudra reported the Lord’s words that in the fifth age these Brahmins would call violence dharma, kill living beings, write violence into their books and revile the Nirgrantha (possessionless) monks; Bharata turned on them in anger, they fled to the Lord, and Rishabha told him that so it must be in this Kali age and he should not give way to anger.

Of the four thousand fallen kings, Kachchha and others took initiation again, while souls like Marichi adopted the Samkhya creed, wearing loincloths and bark; Rishabhadeva, having carried many across samsara, attained nirvana on Mount Kailasa, and Bharata, after ruling for a time, cast off his kingdom like old straw, attained Kevala Jnana within an antarmuhurta (less than 48 minutes) and at the end of his life reached nirvana.