This is a story from the time of Bhagwän Mahävir. At that time, king Chetak was the ruler of Vaishäli and he had a beautiful daughter named Chelna. Once an artist called Bharat painted a picture of Chelna and showed it to king Shrenik of Magadh. Charmed by Chelna's beauty, Shrenik fell in love with her. One day Chelna came to the city of Magadh where she saw king Shrenik and she also fell in love with him. They soon got married.
Queen Chelna was a devoted follower of Jainism, while Shrenik was influenced by Buddhism. The king was very generous with a big heart but somehow was not happy with his queen's devotion to the Jain monks. He wanted to prove to Chelna that Jain monks were pretenders. He strongly believed that no man could follow the practice of self-restraint and non-violence to that extent, and that the equanimity shown by Jain monks is superficial. Chelna was greatly disturbed by this.
One day, King Shrenik went on a hunting trip where he saw a Jain monk, Yamadhar, engaged in deep meditation. Shrenik let his hunter dogs go after Yamadhar but the monk remained silent. On seeing the calmness and composure of the monk, the dogs became quiet. King Shrenik got angry and thought that the monk had played some trick on them. So he started shooting arrows at the monk but they kept on missing him. Becoming more upset, he finally put a dead snake around Yamadhar's neck and came back to his palace.
The king narrated the whole incident to Chelna. The queen felt very sorry and took the king back to Yamadhar's meditation place. Because of the dead snake, ants, and other insects were crawling all over the monk's body but the monk did not even stir. The couple witnessed the limits of human endurance. The queen gently removed the ants and snake from the monk’s body, and cleaned his wounds. She applied sandalwood paste. After sometime, Yamadhar opened his eyes and blessed both of them.
The monk did not distinguish between the king who had caused him pain, and the queen who had alleviated his pain. King Shrenik was very impressed, and convinced that Jain monk were truly beyond attachment and aversion. Thus, king Shrenik along with queen Chelna became devoted to Jainism and believed in Bhagwän Mahävir.
This is a story from the time of Bhagwän Mahävir.
In the story “Three Skeleton Key” there is a conflict between the sea rats and three men. In the end, one of the men, Le Gleo, goes to an insane asylum and another man dies. A quote to show this is, “He was locked in an insane asylum, the poor man! Itchoua’s bites were infected; he died within a week.” While these two had tragic endings, the third man survives the rat attacks and proves humans can outwit animals.
This adds to the reader’s sympathy because he didn’t provoke the man’s attack and did nothing to deserve what happened to him. He was punished despite being completely innocent. Though the snake does not pose a direct threat, he is an extremely powerful creature and a great asset to the beauty of nature. He “felt no necessity of getting out of anybody’s path,” showing his confidence in himself. Though he is confident, he is not arrogant. He does not cower at the sight of the man, nor does he try to threaten him. He simply stands his ground confidently, waiting for the man to dictate his next move. This trait of the snake causes the reader to respect him and appreciate his position of power, reinforcing their sympathetic feelings. The snake’s death was slow and painful, and the author described all of the gruesome details in order to further affect the reader. The man himself admits that “it was a nasty sight”. First, he hacked about in the paper bag bush until he “dragged
Then the sand was sunk. Until one night when he does get it and the monk finds out and goes to Johns. house and hold him at gun point with the cur dog at monks side. He tells John to turn around and drop his jeans and then monk tells he is dog to bite he butts. If John were to move, the monk would shoot him.
Queen Ka’ahumanu was one of the most important women in Hawaiian history, as well as one of the most powerful queens. With her determination and strong influence, she managed to forever alter the foundations of Hawaii’s kingdom and overthrow the traditional ancient religion.
impress the King I will be able to marry his daughter. At the time the
carnivorous ants. He had to lay there until they gave him a signal to get up
The sight of the snake is so heartbreaking that even the man is left to rethink
A pigeon was being chased by a hawk and went to the king for help. The king wanted to know why it feared the hawk so much and the pigeon told him the hawk would kill him. The king then promised to protect the pigeon no matter the cost. Once the promise was made the hawk came to the king and asked if he would give him the pigeon. The king then asked why he could not eat anything else like a frog and the hawk told him that he is supposed to eat the pigeon and nothing else. When the king kept denying the hawk it grew impatient and made a deal with the king. The deal was that the king would put the pigeon on a scale and then cut his own flesh until it weighed the same amount as the pigeon but no matter how much the king cut the pigeon always weighed more. Soon enough the king was only a skeleton and this is when Indra came down from the heavens himself to restore the kings flesh and take him back to heaven with him. He was fond of the king for protecting the pigeon and keeping his promise no matter what came about. This myth is very similar to the story of Jobe in the Christian faith. Where Jobe was the king, the hawk was the devil and god was the pigeon. Jobe promised to always have faith in god no matter what so just as the hawk took all of the kings flesh, the devil took everything Jobe had in order to see if he would
"You know, my friend, that even as a young man, when we lived with the ascetics in the forest, I came to distrust doctrines and teachers and to turn my back to them. I am still of the same turn of mind, although I have, since that time, had many teachers. A beautiful courtesan was my teacher for a long time, and a rich merchant and a dice player. On one occasion, one of the Buddha’s wandering monks was my teacher. He halted in his pilgrimage to sit beside me when I fell asleep in the forest. I also learned something from him and I am grateful to him, very grateful. But most of all, I have learned from this river and from my predecessor, Vasudeva. He was a simple man; he was not a thinker, but he realized the essential as well as Gotama, he was a holy man, a saint" (141).
Xuanzang was a highly educated Buddhist monk from China, who in 629 C.E. made the long and treacherous journey along the Silk Road to India. His main objectives in his sixteen years away from home were fundamentally religious; he only wanted to study more complete scriptures to answer questions he had, which he deemed unsolvable in his own country. It is important to understand Xuanzang’s own position within the Chinese society and the type of situation it was in: Chinese Buddhists had many disagreements
...se well, the rabbit just tricked the DRAGON KING, and that is not good. Reading this didn’t change me or make me think, “Wow, I learned something.” But, I guess after reading this folktale, I can learn more lesson in life one step at a time. Anyways, after reading this not gross, weird but normal story, I realized 2 things: Don’t or try not to do stupid mistakes in life and secondly, sometimes they can hurt people around you, so don’t do it!” There are such causes where people do little mistakes, but some people can create the biggest mistakes in their lives that they don’t know what to do anymore. But, I guess it’s not their fault to act like such a “seaweed brain”. Life goes on, and so do they; we learn from mistakes but like in this story, there are consequences, but I’m sure we can get over them if we try hard because that’s why we were created, to do something.
“The Wife of Bath’s Tale” is written in an entertaining and adventurous spirit, but serves a higher purpose by illustrating the century’s view of courtly love. Hundreds, if not thousands, of other pieces of literature written in the same century prevail to commemorate the coupling of breathtaking princesses with lionhearted knights after going through unimaginable adventures, but only a slight few examine the viability of such courtly love and the related dilemmas that always succeed. “The Wife of Bath’s Tale” shows that women desire most their husband’s love, Overall, “The Wife of Bath’s Tale” shows that the meaning of true love does not stay consistent, whether between singular or separate communities and remains timeless as the depictions of love from this 14th century tale still hold true today.
Jainism is an ancient religion from India that believes that the way to liberation is to live a life of harmlessness. It is a religion of self-help; there are no gods or spiritual beings that will help people. Most Jains live in India and England. The aim of Jain life is to achieve liberation of the soul. Jains believe that animals, plants, and humans all have living souls, and that each of these souls is considered of equal value and should be treated with respect and compassion. People who practice Jainism are very strict vegetarians. There are three guiding principles of Jainism which are right belief, right knowledge, and right conduct. Fasting is very common in Jain spirituality. They fast during special times during the year such as festival and holy days and is done by Jain women more than Jain men. They sometimes even fast for months at a time; some even fast till death. This is known to be different from suicide; the intention is to purify the body, and remove all thought of physical things from the mind. Pilgrimage plays an important role in Jain life. One of the most famou...
The Queen's name was Maya. She was the daughter of the King's uncle who was also a king of the neighboring division of the same Shakya clan. For twenty years they had no children, then, after dreaming a strange dream of an elephant entering her side, Queen Maya became pregnant. The King and the people looked forward with joyful expectancy to the birth of a royal child. According to their custom the Queen returned to her own home for the birth, and while on the way, in the beautiful spring sunshine, she rested in the flower garden of Lumbini Park. All about her were Asoka blossoms and in delight she reached out her right arm to pluck a branch and the Prince was born. All expressed their heartfelt delight and extolled the glory of the Queen and her princely child; even Heaven and Earth manifested their joy. This memorable day was the eighth day of April. The joy of the King was extreme as he named the child: Siddhartha, which means, "Every wish fulfilled."