From Sacred Jainism Scripture “Uttaradhyayana” – Lectures 11 & 12, Part 2 of 2

We now invite you to continue listening to excerpts from the Twelfth lecture of “Uttaradhyayana,” one of the most important scriptures in Jainism. The story continued, as Harikesa-Bala, a great rishi, was badly treated by priests.

“‘I am a chaste Sramana, controlling myself; I have no property, nothing belonging to me, and do not cook my food; I have come for food which is dressed for somebody else at the time when I call.’”

“‘All the world knows that we are (as it were) the field on which gifts sown grow up as merit; Brahmanas of pure birth and knowledge are the blessed fields.’”

“‘He is that austere ascetic, of noble nature, who subdues his senses and controls himself; the chaste man, who would not accept me when my own father, king Kausalika, gave me to him.’ ‘He is the man of great fame and might, of awful piety and power; do not injure him who cannot be injured, lest he consume you all by the fire (of his virtue).’”

“‘Prostrate yourself before him for protection, you together with all of them, if you want to save your life and your property; for in his wrath he might reduce the world to ashes.’”

“‘Doing no injury to living beings of the six orders, abstaining from lying and from taking what is not freely given, renouncing property, women, pride, and deceit, men should live under self-restraint.”

“‘Penance is my fire; life my fireplace; right exertion is my sacrificial ladle; the body the dried cowdung; Karma is my fuel; self-control, right exertion, and tranquility are the oblations, praised by the sages, which I offer.’”

“‘The Law (spiritual precepts) is my pond, celibacy my holy bathing-place, which is not turbid, and throughout clear for the soul; there I make ablutions; pure, clean, and thoroughly cooled I get rid of hatred (or impurity).’ ‘The clever ones have discovered such bathing, it is the great bath praised by the seers, in which the great seers bathe, and, pure and clean, they obtain the highest place.’”