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Padma Puranaपद्मपुराण · Jain Ramayana
हिन्दी

Parva 87

The Elephant Rises to Heaven and Bharata Attains Nirvana

Trailokyamandana keeps the lay vows with long fasts and dies in sallekhana to return to the sixth heaven, while the sage Bharata wanders, conquers every hardship and attains liberation.

Part of Victory and the Return to Ayodhya

Summary

In the Kevali's presence the elephant Trailokyamandana takes the householder's vows with right faith, fasting for a fortnight or a month at a time and breaking its fasts on dry leaves or on pure food given by devout lay people. At the end it gives up all food in sallekhana and is reborn a god in the sixth heaven, from which it had come. The sage Bharata, homeless, fearless and equal-minded towards friend and foe, wanders through hardships, gains many spiritual powers, destroys his karmas by pure meditation and attains Kevala Jnana and then the state of the Siddhas.

What happens

5 points

  1. With a calm mind Trailokyamandana takes the householder's vows before the Kevali and, with right faith and pure intent, begins to practise austerities: fasts of a fortnight or a month, broken on dry leaves, and only water from lakes made pure (free of living beings) to drink. Revered by people who fear the cycle of births, it walks the earth with a purified mind.

  2. When it comes into town to break a long fast, the lay followers feed it pure grain and water with deep devotion. Tied to the post of detachment and steered by the goad of vows and restraint, it wastes its great body in fierce austerity, slowly gives up all four kinds of food, takes sallekhana (the vow of a holy fast unto death) at the end and is reborn a god in the sixth heaven, adorned with divine garlands and earrings among many goddesses. It had come from the sixth heaven and returns there, and will in time attain moksha.

  3. The sage Bharata, free of attachment to his body, sits wherever evening finds him, never staying long in one place, as unattached as the wind, forgiving as the earth, pure as water and burning the wood of karma like fire. Absorbed in the four aradhanas (devotions) and the thirteenfold conduct, fearless as a lion, deep as the ocean, steady as Mount Sumeru and naked as at birth, he wears truth as his armour and conquers the twenty-two parishahas (hardships) with the sword of forbearance.

  4. Treating friend and foe, pleasure and pain, glass and gold, palace and cremation ground alike, he wanders and takes food as the scriptures direct, and many great riddhis arise from his austerity; thorns sharp as needles in his feet cause him no distress, and he even seeks out places of enemies to bear their attacks. Through restraint, shukla dhyana (pure meditation) arises; he destroys delusion and the karmas that obscure knowledge and perception and that obstruct, attains Kevala Jnana that lights up the universe, and then, destroying the remaining karmas, becomes a Siddha, never to wander again.

  5. Whoever reads or hears with devotion this life of Bharata, son of Kaikeyi, is said to be freed from troubles and to win fame, strength, prosperity and health, heaven and liberation, and soon to gain the light of Kevala Jnana brighter than the sun.