Jaine, Stories, Shravak Shravika, , ,

It happened in the city of Sabhanjani. On one of the main streets, Mahavira's disciple Gautama saw a young man with his hands tied behind him and the neck also stretched as far back as it could go, with his ears and nose cut off and he was being proclaimed as a criminal sentenced to death. He was being accompanied by an attractive looking young woman. Gautama felt greatly affected by the miserable sight and spoke about it to his master who said that it was all the fruit of their bad karma in their previous existence.

This young man Sakata had lived then in the Chagalapura as a shepherd. His father Chania was a rich shepherd who had a very large number of cattle, goats, hogs, deer, lions, peacocks and several such animals whose flesh tasted delicious. He had kept a number of servants on his farm to look after his enormous lot of animals. Every day they killed many of them, cut their flesh with knives and under the supervision of their master, fried, roasted or baked the flesh of the animals so slaughtered. They sold the meat and earned their livelihood. The shepherd Chania enjoyed eating the well cooked meat of the animals from his farm, along with wines. He paid his servants partly in cash and partly in food. This way he collected a great deal of sinful karma through his sinful acts and after his death was born as a hell-being in the fourth region of hell where he was condemned to live for ten sagoropamas.

In the same city was a merchant Subhadra by name, whose wife Bhadra gave birth to only still-born children. Around the time when the shepherd Chania's time in hell was over, Bhadra found herself pregnant once again. Chania had come into her womb. The merchant and his wife were most anxious that at least this time the child should not be still-born and as soon as the child was born they placed him under a cart so that it would have long life. The son indeed survived and lived a long life. He was given the name Sakata which means a cart.

During one of his voyages, Subhadra, the father of Sakata, was shipwrecked in the Lavana Ocean and he died. When the news reached his house, his wife Bhadra died of the shock and the poor boy was turned out of his house by the creditors of his father. Sakata grew up happily on the streets of the town. One of these days he came in contact with a young girl Sudarsana by name who later became an extremely popular courtesan in the town, having a very rich clientele. The Chief Minister of the town Susena was one of them but the courtesan could not get over her fascination for Sakata and she continued to show favours to him. Susena decided to make Sudarsana his own mistress and gave her a big house, a number of servants and plenty of wealth. He also forbade her entertaining Sakata any more but they did meet secretly and did enjoy all kinds of pleasures in each other's company. Once Susena saw Sudarsana in the arms of Sakata and felt terribly enraged. He ordered his servants to capture the young man and break his bones. They bound him in such a way that his neck was bent far behind. The minister approached the king with the complaint that Sakata had committed the offence of intruding upon his privacy and demanded severe punishment. The king however left the matter to the minister himself. The minister ordered Sakata and Sudarsana to be marched out of the house into the main street. This is where Gautama had seen him in that miserable condition. After the torture was over, Sakata's hands were untied but he was made to embrace a red hot iron statue of a woman and this is how Sakata died.

Mahavira told Gautama that Sakata would be born as a hell-being in the region of hell called Ratnaprabha. After his stay there was over, he and Sudarsana would be re-born as twins in a matanga family in the city of Rajagrha where their names would continue to be the same. They would both grow to be attractive young people and the boy Sakata would feel greatly infatuated by his twin sister Sudarsana's form and beauty and they would enjoy incestuous pleasures. Sakata would later on keep a farm and indulge in all sorts of evil and sinful deeds with the animals and eat their flesh. After his death, he would go to hell and after completing his period there he would be born as a fish in Varanasi. After being killed by a fisherman, he would come back to the same city as a son in a merchant family and attain salvation with the help of an ascetic.

The Story Of Sakata