The Tirthankaras
Devaki's Eighth Son and the Last Days of Dwarka
Devaki's Eighth Son and the Last Days of Dwarka is a Jain story from the The Tirthankaras collection about motherhood, forgiveness, equanimity, impermanence and anger and its cost. Queen Devaki gives alms to six monks who look exactly alike, and learns from Bhagwan Neminath who they really are. Her longing to raise a child brings her one more son, Gajsukumal, whose life turns on a single night outside the walls of Dwarka. Then Krishna asks how his golden city will end. A long read on a mother's love, perfect forgiveness and impermanence, told as the Antagada Sutra tells it.
| Teaches | Motherhood, Forgiveness, Equanimity, Impermanence, Anger and its cost |
|---|---|
| Collection | The Tirthankaras |
| Tellings | The full story (19 min) |
| Who it suits | For grown-ups |
| Tradition | Shvetambar telling |
| Thought to keep | Anger can burn a city; forgiveness, held for one night, can set a soul free. |
Read the opening of Devaki's Eighth Son and the Last Days of Dwarka
The opening of the story
Dwarka, the city the gods had raised for the Yadav clan beside the western ocean, was nine yojanas across, and in the days of this story it shone like a heaven come down to earth. Shri Krishna ruled there, with his elder brother Balram beside him, and in a palace of her own lived his mother, Queen Devaki, the wife of Vasudev. One season Bhagwan Neminath, the twenty-second Tirthankar and Krishna's own cousin, came with his monks and stayed in the mango grove of Sahasavan below Mount Raivatak.
Among the Lord's monks were six brothers so alike that no one could tell one from another: of one height and one age, dark as a blue lotus, and so handsome that people said each of them looked a little like Krishna himself. On the day they took diksha they had vowed to spend the rest of their lives fasting two days at a time, eating only on the third.
Read the whole story of Devaki's Eighth Son and the Last Days of Dwarka See plans
What Devaki's Eighth Son and the Last Days of Dwarka teaches
Values Motherhood Forgiveness Equanimity Impermanence Anger and its cost
To carry into the day
Anger can burn a city; forgiveness, held for one night, can set a soul free.
To talk about together
Devaki longed all her life to hold her children, and in the end she sent her sons away from the fire. What do you think she understood by then that she had not understood at the beginning?
Sources
Retold for JainStory from the traditional story and checked against 4 published sources:
- archive.org
- Jainpedia
- Wisdom Library (4 pages)
- Jain eLibrary (8 pages)