The Seven Sages Lift the Calamity of Mathura

Seven sky-faring sages arrive in Mathura on their wanderings: Suramanyu, Svaramanyu, Shrinichaya, Sarvasundara, Jayavan, Vinayalalasa and Jayamitra, Nirgrantha (possessionless) munis radiant as the sun who hold the Charana riddhi (the power of moving through the sky). They were sons of King Shrinandana and Queen Dharani who, on seeing Pritikara Swami attain Kevala Jnana (omniscience), took diksha (initiation) from him together with their father, leaving the kingdom to a son named Damara who was only a month old.

Their father Shrinandana attained Kevala Jnana, while the seven sons became great munis with the Charana and many other riddhis (supernatural powers) and became Shrutakevalis (masters of the whole scripture). For the chaturmasa (four-month rainy-season retreat) they settle under a banyan tree in the forest of Mathura, and by the power of their austerity Chamarendra's plague flees like a wayward daughter-in-law at the sight of her father-in-law: the people become free of disease, grain springs up without sowing, and Mathura rejoices like a new bride seeing her husband.

The sages give up rich foods and keep fasts of two days, three days, a fortnight and a month. Though bound to stay in one place for the four months, the Charana riddhi lets them fly in an instant to towns such as Podanapura and Vijayapura and eat from their cupped hands in the homes of devout shravakas (lay followers) before returning, for, the text explains, restraint is practised through the body, and so munis and aryikas (nuns) take food.

One day, watching the ground four cubits ahead as they walk, the sages come to Ayodhya at mealtime and stop at the house of the merchant Arhaddatta. He reasons that munis do not travel in the rains, that he has already paid homage to every sadhu (holy man) keeping the retreat in and around Ayodhya, in caves, on riverbanks, under trees, in forest temples and on hills, and that these strangers must be wanderers who defy the Acharanga scripture and the tradition of the acharyas. Thinking so in ignorance he goes out, and his daughter-in-law serves the munis pure food with navadha bhakti (the ninefold devotion due to a monk).

After eating, the seven come to the Jina temple where the sage Dyutibhattaraka is staying, gliding four finger-breadths above the ground by their riddhi but setting their feet down inside the temple. Dyutibhattaraka rises and bows to them with reverence, all his disciples pay homage, and after discussing dharma together the sages worship the Jina and fly back to Mathura.

When Arhaddatta later comes to the temple, Dyutibhattaraka asks whether he too paid homage to the seven great sages who keep the retreat in Mathura's forest, fly wherever they wish for alms, ate in Ayodhya that very day and are worthy of worship as destroyers of sin. Stricken with remorse, the merchant calls himself a man of false faith who let a priceless jewel of merit slip from his hand, declares that a shravaka who does not honour and feed a sadhu with devotion is deeply deluded, and resolves that he will know no peace until he sees those sages.

The text notes that by the Agama (scripture) Charana munis keep the retreat in one place yet may take food in different towns, and that their movement harms no living being. As the full moon of Kartika draws near, Arhaddatta, a shravaka of right faith with wealth like a king's, sets out from Ayodhya with his family and a great train of chariots, elephants and horses, reproaching himself all the way; on the seventh day of the bright half of Kartika he reaches the sages' feet, worships them with due rites and has Mathura adorned until it looks like heaven.

Hearing the news, Shatrughna rides swiftly to the sages, followed by his mother Suprabha, and hears their sermon: the world is hollow and only the path of the passionless Jina is the essence. They explain the twelve vows of a shravaka (five anuvratas or lesser vows, three gunavratas and four shikshavratas) and the twenty-eight mulagunas (root virtues) of a muni (five mahavratas or great vows, five samitis or rules of care, control of the five senses, six daily duties and seven further rules), and say that munis eat pure food once a day in daylight to further their austerity, not to nourish the body.

Shatrughna begs them to stay a few days more, since their coming has ended the plague, famine and every calamity in Mathura. They reply that staying beyond the Jina's command is not right, and foretell what is to come: Munisuvrata has reached moksha (liberation), four Tirthankaras remain, Nami, Nemi, Parshva and Mahavira, and then in the fifth age, Duhshama, dharma will steadily decline, heretics will spread violence, kings will become robbers, sons will defy their parents, Charana munis, gods and Vidyadharas will no longer come and go, and the ignorant will mock naked Digambara munis while honouring the pleasure-seekers.

They warn that food given with devotion to unchaste pleasure-seekers bears no fruit, like seed sown on a mountain, and that those who revile munis while worshipping false ascetics leave the sandalwood tree for a thorn bush and are bound for hell. They urge Shatrughna to make his life fruitful through charity and worship, the highest good for a householder, and to have every home in Mathura set up a Jina image with daily abhisheka (ritual bathing) and worship: where even a thumb-sized image is worshipped daily, plague and diseases no doctor can cure flee like a serpent from Garuda, while homes without worship and charity fall to disease as a deer to a lion. Shatrughna humbly promises that all his subjects will live by this teaching.

The sages then fly on, worship at many nirvana-kshetras (places where souls attained liberation), and come to Sita's house, where she joyfully serves them pure food with the ninefold devotion to break their fast. Shatrughna builds many Jina temples, like the slopes of Kailasa, inside and outside Mathura and has images installed in every home; the city is freed of disease, gardens bloom and bear fruit, lotuses open in the lakes and stepwells, and heaps of grain rise as high as temple spires.

Under Rama's rule the people live like gods on an earth full of gems and gold, devoted to dharma, artha (wealth) and kama (pleasure), and Shatrughna reigns happily in Mathura, commanding many kings by Rama's glory and shining like Varuna among the gods. The chapter promises that whoever reads or hears it binds auspicious karma of name, lineage, pleasant feeling and lifespan, and teaches that devotion to the guru is the means to the bliss of liberation.