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Padma Puranaपद्मपुराण · Jain Ramayana
हिन्दी

Parva 59

The Past Lives of Hasta and Prahasta and of Nala and Nila

Gautama reveals that Nala and Nila killed Hasta and Prahasta because those two had murdered them in a former birth.

Part of The War of Lanka

Summary

Shrenika asks how Nala and Nila could slay such skilled commanders, and Gautama traces the enmity to a former birth: the pious Brahmin brothers Indhaka and Pallava of Kushasthala were murdered by two cruel rivals at a royal almsgiving. The victims rose through a Bhogabhumi, heaven, lay vows and heaven again to be born as Nala and Nila in Kishkindhapura, while the killers passed through births as rats and as misguided hermits to become Hasta and Prahasta, sons of King Agnikumara of Arinjayapura. Gautama closes with a sermon that whoever kills is killed in turn, that only merit protects, and that right faith dispels the darkness of false belief and leads to liberation.

What happens

5 points

  1. Shrenika marvels that Nala and Nila could kill commanders as skilled in vidya as Hasta and Prahasta and asks whether the enmity was of this birth or a former one; the Ganadhara answers that, bound by karma, souls pass through many births, and by the force of past karma whoever has killed another is surely killed by him, and whoever has freed another is freed by him.

  2. In Kushasthala lived two poor Brahmin brothers born of one mother, Indhaka and Pallava, farmers whose families were kind and devoted to monks, and who through a Jain friend took up charity and dharma; another poor pair, cruel followers of the false path, quarrelled with them while the king was distributing alms and killed them. By the merit of their giving, Indhaka and Pallava were born in the middle Bhogabhumi (land of enjoyment), lived there two palyas (immense ages) and then became gods.

  3. The cruel killers died and were born as rats in the forest called Kalinjara, the fate of false believers who slander monks; after wandering through animal births they became human tapasas (hermits) who lived on fruit and leaves and wasted their bodies with fierce but misguided austerities, and dying with false knowledge they were reborn in Arinjayapura on the southern row of Vijayardha as the sons of King Agnikumara and Queen Ashvini, Hasta and Prahasta, the world-famous generals of Ravana.

  4. Indhaka and Pallava fell from heaven to be born as men, kept the vows of the Shravaka (Jain layman), became excellent gods in heaven, and descending from there were born in Kishkindhapura as the brothers Nala and Nila; because in the earlier birth the souls of Hasta and Prahasta had killed them, Nala and Nila now killed Hasta and Prahasta.

  5. Gautama teaches that whoever kills is killed, whoever protects is protected and whoever is indifferent meets indifference; causeless anger at the sight of someone marks a past-life enemy, and sudden love a past-life friend. Shipwreck, crocodiles and raiding mlecchas (barbarians) are fruits of sin, no army, god or kinsman can save one whose merit is spent, only gifts to the worthy, vows, chastity and right faith protect, forgiveness is the highest austerity, and as sunlight reveals the path, the sun of knowledge dispels the darkness of false belief and brings the soul to the imperishable city of liberation.