Sadhvi Vishrut Vibha
Momentariness Of The Body
Once there was a ruler named, King Bala in the city of Veetashoka. He got a golden opportunity to listen to the sermon of the monks. He was so deeply influenced by the sermons that he started performing penance and eventually attained emancipation.
Prince Mahabala, the son of king Bala, succeeded his father to the throne. He had six friends and all of them were of the same age group. They played together and were brought up together. They had tremendous faith in each other and vowed to depend on each other and share their life’s miseries and joys. Mahabala even readily renounced his kingdom and performed penance as per his friend’s decision to follow the path of renunciation. While leading a monk’s life, a feeling to supersede his friends arose in Mahabala. This feeling of superiority made him perform actions like fasting more frequently than others. If the friends fasted for one day, Mahabala would fast for two days and if they fasted for two days, Mahabala would fast for three days and so on. Consequently, all the monks went to heaven.
Later Mahabala was reborn as the daughter of Kumbha, the King of Mithila and was named Malli. The six friends of previous birth had already taken birth as kings of different provinces. All of these kings loved Malli. When Malli came to know of this situation through her extra sensory perception, she chalked out a plan to change the situation.
According to the plan, Malli Kumari made a statue that resembled her so much that nobody could differentiate between Malli and her statue. The statue had a hole on the head and it was hollow from inside. After every meal, Malli threw a fragment of the meal into the body through the hole on the head. In due course, the rotting fragments of the meal began stinking and by placing a lid over the hole, the foul smell was not allowed to spread outside. She also got a house built with six rooms (cabins) for the kings to reside in, such that no one could see the other. However, they could see the statue behind the iron bars situated opposite the cabins.
When the six kings arrived in Mithila, each requested King Kumbha for Malli’s hand in marriage but were refused. This enraged the six kings and they united to take revenge. They succeeded in their venture and King Kumbha returned to his palace defeated and depressed. When his daughter Malli enquired about his sadness, he explained the whole incident to her. She asked him not to worry and said to him, “Send a message to each king saying that Malli would definitely marry him. Make them reside in the house that has been specially built for them. Ask each of them to enter the palace secretly.”
King Kumbha did exactly as Malli desired. All the six kings arrived and each was allotted a cabin. In the morning, everyone saw the statue of Malli and mistook it to be the real Malli. They stared as it without blinking their eyelids. Then Malli Kumari arrived and removed the lid over the hole on the head. The foul smell spread all over the place and to avoid it, the kings immediately covered their respective nose. Now, Malli thought that this was the right time to teach them lesson.
She said to them, “If the little food that I have been putting into the statue can give out such a bad smell, imagine what the result would be if I put such meals into the astral body. This human body is momentary, so why are you illusioned?” thus, addressing them, she explained the whole story of their previous life and realized the mystery of life. The atmosphere of attachment changed to detachment and at that very moment, Malli resolved to accept initiation.
According to the Tirthankar’s tradition, Malli too gave the annual donation and thereafter, took initiation. On the king also took initiation and finally, attained emancipation.
