The Tirthankaras
The Ten Lives of Parshvanath
The Ten Lives of Parshvanath is a Jain story from the The Tirthankaras collection about forgiveness, compassion, equanimity, renunciation and liberation. In his tenth life the forgiving soul is born as Prince Parshva of Varanasi, ends a siege without a battle, and finds two snakes burning in an ascetic's fire. The ascetic, his old enemy, returns as the cloud god Meghmali to drown him in a storm, and the snakes he once comforted come to shelter him. The second of two long reads on the ten lives of Bhagwan Parshvanath, from Varanasi to Sammet Shikhar.
| Teaches | Forgiveness, Compassion, Equanimity, Renunciation, Liberation |
|---|---|
| Collection | The Tirthankaras |
| Tellings | The full story (17 min) |
| Who it suits | For grown-ups |
| Tradition | Shvetambar telling |
| Thought to keep | The storm and the shelter were the same to him. |
Read the opening of The Ten Lives of Parshvanath
The opening of the story
Nine lives had passed. In Potanpur two brothers had been born to a royal priest, and the elder, Kamath, had killed the younger, Marubhuti, with a stone as he bowed to ask forgiveness. After that the two souls had met again as an elephant and a winged serpent, as a monk and a great snake, as a monk and a hunter, and as an emperor turned monk and a lion. Each time the one who had been Kamath struck, and each time the one who had been Marubhuti forgave. Now the forgiving soul was resting in Pranat, the tenth heaven, and the other was still wandering through the lowest births.
The soul that had been Kamath came up at last from the fourth hell, passed through many hard lives as an animal, and was born once more as a human being. His father was a poor Brahmin, and both his parents died soon after he was born. Kind neighbours fed him so that he would not starve. Acharya Hemachandra and Acharya Bhavadev both call him Katha in this life, though most people who tell the story simply call him Kamath again, and so shall we.
Read the whole story of The Ten Lives of Parshvanath See plans
What The Ten Lives of Parshvanath teaches
Values Forgiveness Compassion Equanimity Renunciation Liberation
To carry into the day
The storm and the shelter were the same to him.
To talk about together
Bhagwan Parshvanath felt no anger toward Meghmali and no attachment toward Dharanendra. Which is harder for us to let go of: our anger at those who hurt us, or our clinging to those who help us?
Sources
Retold for JainStory from the traditional story and checked against 5 published sources: