Monks and Acharyas
Jambu Swami and the Eight Wives
Jambu Swami and the Eight Wives is a Jain story from the Monks and Acharyas collection about renunciation, love and duty, detachment, transformation and wise argument. Jambu has promised his parents he will marry, and promised himself he will become a monk the morning after. On the wedding night his eight brides set out to change his mind with stories, while a prince turned robber climbs the stairs with five hundred men behind him. A long read on love, duty and the pull of the world, told the way Acharya Hemachandra told it.
| Teaches | Renunciation, Love and duty, Detachment, Transformation, Wise argument |
|---|---|
| Collection | Monks and Acharyas |
| Tellings | The full story (20 min) |
| Who it suits | For grown-ups |
| Tradition | Shvetambar telling |
| Thought to keep | Thirst is not cured by drinking more; it is cured by seeing what the thirst is. |
Read the opening of Jambu Swami and the Eight Wives
The opening of the story
The house of the merchant Rishabhdatt in Rajgruhi rose seven storeys above the street, and on the night after the wedding the lamps on the top floor burned long after the city had gone dark. Below, room after room was stacked with the brides' gifts, gold the servants had counted at ninety-nine crore. Above, in the highest chamber, a young man sat on a low seat, and around him, still in their wedding silks, sat his eight brides.
Everyone in the house knew what had been agreed. At sunrise the bridegroom would walk out of the front door without his ornaments and without his shoes, and he would not come back. He would become a monk. The brides had been told before they married him, and every one of them had married him anyway. They had this one night, and they had not come upstairs to weep. They had come to argue.
Read the whole story of Jambu Swami and the Eight Wives See plans
What Jambu Swami and the Eight Wives teaches
Values Renunciation Love and duty Detachment Transformation Wise argument
To carry into the day
Thirst is not cured by drinking more; it is cured by seeing what the thirst is.
To talk about together
Which of the brides' arguments do you find the strongest, and how would you have answered it?
Sources
Retold for JainStory from the traditional story and checked against 4 published sources:
- archive.org (2 pages)
- Wikipedia
- Jain eLibrary (6 pages)
- Jainpedia