The Tirthankaras
The Elephant of Pride
The Elephant of Pride is a Jain story from the The Tirthankaras collection about pride and humility, brotherhood, non-violence, renunciation and detachment. Bharat comes home from sixty thousand years of conquest, but the wheel of empire will not rest while his brothers refuse to bow. Ninety-eight of them choose their father's path, and Bahubali chooses to stand his ground. The second of two long reads on Rishabhdev and his sons: a duel without armies, a year of standing meditation, two sisters with one sentence, and an emperor in a hall of mirrors.
| Teaches | Pride and humility, Brotherhood, Non-violence, Renunciation, Detachment |
|---|---|
| Collection | The Tirthankaras |
| Tellings | The full story (17 min) |
| Who it suits | For grown-ups |
| Tradition | Shvetambar telling |
| Thought to keep | He had given up his kingdom, his hair and his hunger, and the last thing to go was the wish not to bow. |
Read the opening of The Elephant of Pride
The opening of the story
When the first king of our age left his palace, he left a family behind him. Rishabhdev, who had taught the world to farm and write and count, had become the first Tirthankar, and he walked from place to place teaching the path to freedom. His daughter Brahmi was a nun. His daughter Sundari was waiting in the palace for leave to follow her. His hundred sons ruled the lands he had divided among them. And in the armoury at Ayodhya a blazing wheel had appeared on the very day of his kevaljnan, and had risen into the air to lead his eldest son out to conquer the world.
The blazing wheel went before Bharat like a second sun, and his armies followed it. It led him east to the sea and west to the sea, south beyond the forests and north through a mountain cave so long and dark that his men marched through it by the light of a jewel. Kings came out to meet him with gifts and bowed, and the gods of rivers and shores offered him their treasures. Nine great treasures and fourteen jewels came into his keeping. Hemachandra says that sixty thousand years passed from the day of the first march to the day the wheel turned home towards Ayodhya. Bharat, the eldest son of the first Tirthankar, had become the first chakravarti of our age.
Read the whole story of The Elephant of Pride See plans
What The Elephant of Pride teaches
Values Pride and humility Brotherhood Non-violence Renunciation Detachment
To carry into the day
He had given up his kingdom, his hair and his hunger, and the last thing to go was the wish not to bow.
To talk about together
Bahubali could give up everything except the wish not to bow to his younger brothers. What is the elephant you find hardest to climb down from?
Sources
Retold for JainStory from the traditional story and checked against 5 published sources: