Page:The Heart of Jainism (IA heartofjainism00stevuoft).djvu/305

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.
JAINA MYTHOLOGY
277

The eleventh is more interesting, for it is Devakī, the mother of Kṛiṣṇa, at present working out her karma in the eighth Devaloka, who will be incarnate as Munisuvrata.

The dark god Kṛiṣṇa himself, now in the third hell, is to become the twelfth Tīrthaṅkara, Amama.

Harasatyakī, the guru of Rāvaṇa of Hindu mythology, when he leaves the fifth Devaloka, is to be incarnate as the thirteenth Tīrthaṅkara, Nikaṣāya.

Kṛiṣṇa's brother Baḷadeva, now in the sixth Devaloka, will become Niṣpulāka, the fourteenth Tīrthaṅkara.

Sulasā, a man now in the fifth Devaloka, is to be the fifteenth, Nirmama.

We have not even yet come to the end of Hindu influence, for the stepmother of Kṛiṣṇa, Rohiṇi (the mother of Baḷadeva), who is in the second Devaloka, will be incarnate as Ċitragupta, the sixteenth Tīrthaṅkara.

Revatī, a woman now in the twelfth Devaloka, who in her past life was married to Mahāśutaka, a famous Jaina layman, will become Sumādhi, the seventeenth Tīrthaṅkara.

The eighteenth was in her past life Subhala, and later a very chaste woman (if not an actual satī), Magavatī, and is at the present time in the eighth Devaloka, from whence she will issue eventually as Saṁvaranātha.

The Hindu ascetic Dvaipāyana, who set fire to Dvārakā, and is now a god, Agni Kumāra, will at last be incarnate as the nineteenth Tīrthaṅkara, Yaśodhara.

The twentieth shows again the enormous popularity of the Kṛiṣṇa cult and the influence it wields over Jaina as well as Hindu thought, for it is that of Kuṇika, who in his past life was Javakumāra, a relative of Kṛiṣṇa's. At present he is in the twelfth Devaloka, but eventually he will issue forth to be born as Vijaya.

Nārada, who was a layman in the time of Ravana, and who is in the fifth Devaloka, will be the twenty-first Tīrthaṅkara, Mallinātha or Malyadeva.

Ambaḍa, a former ascetic (or, according to other traditions,