18th-century Jaina tale to stimulate the senses

Selfless service always pays off. Neighbours helping neighbours reflects a caring society. The virtue of a charitable act in the life of a little boy was rewarded multiple times in the life of Shalibhadra. As a result, he was able to leave everything easily. Good deeds always leave an imprint on the soul. Good deeds and practising penance ultimately lead to the liberation of the soul.

— Moral at the end of a telling of the tale of Shalibhadra

The overall lack of tonal values in the colours and the formulaic approach in the rendering of the various constituents of the composition tend to impart a folk character to the paintings.

— Saryu Doshi, on the illustrated manuscript of the Shalibhadra story

One remembers the stories that were part of the school ‘course book’ in our childhood. At the end of each used to be a ‘moral’ of the story which one had to memorise: whether it was the story of the brave boy who stood on the track of a broken bridge and waved a light signal to an oncoming train to stop; or that of the clever crow who managed to drink water that lay too deep at the bottom of the jug where his beak could not at first reach; or Premchand’s tale — ‘Boorhi Kaaki’ — of the nearly abandoned old woman whom no one really cared for, even at festive times, except for a little doting grandchild. “What,” the teacher would ask, aloud, at the time of tests, “is the moral of this story?”, and we would chant it back, reciting the printed words. Sounds naïve? Simplistic? Perhaps. But the memory remains etched on the mind.

I imagine that those times are gone and nothing like that happens in schools anymore. The world, even the world of children, has become too jaded for morals to be anywhere in the picture. Everything in that line has gone for a toss. How do I come to all this here, then? Because I chanced upon an article on an illustrated manuscript which tells a charmingly constructed ‘moral tale’. Not surprisingly, it comes from the Jaina world, for old literature of that faith is filled with tales of this nature, each aimed at instilling ‘timeless’ values. Shalibhadra Charita, or Shalibhadra Chaupai, is the name under which this story generally goes, Shalibhadra being the principal character who, having lived a life filled with opulence and luxury, turns his back upon everything, and finds his way towards the path of enlightenment and liberation.

‘Once upon a time’ — the times being those in which Mahavira, the great teacher, himself lived — the story begins. It is an involved tale, with twists and turns and many versions in which themes and motifs that Jainism is so rich in — anna-dana, karma, punya, diksha, sallekhana — are all woven in. The story opens — to narrate it in the sketchiest of terms — with a poor mother who was bringing up her child with the barest of means. One day, playing with his friends, he saw everyone beginning, on a festive day, to feast on kheer, or rice pudding. He, however, had none. He went to his mother asking her to cook the same for him, too. She, moved by the request, begged and borrowed from her neighbours, prepared that dish, and placed it before him. However, just as the boy was about to begin to eat, a bhikshu/monk showed up at his door, asking for anna-dana, with which he could break his sacred fast. Without a second’s thought, the boy handed him the entire pot. This pious deed earned the boy enough merit to be born, in his next birth, as Shalibhadra in an incredibly affluent household in which every day 99 pots of gold used to descend from the heavens in return for pious deeds performed by an ancestor.

Shalibhadra grew up, led a life completely free of care, married, and had as many as 32 wives. His mother, Bhadra, was extremely generous by disposition. One day, some shawl merchants showed up at her door, offering her the most refined of shawls, so expensive however that even the ruler of the kingdom did not have enough means to buy them. Bhadra, seeing the quality of the textiles, bought the whole lot without the slightest hesitation. However, the merchants having brought only 16 of them, she cut them up into halves and offered them to her 32 daughters-in-law to wipe their feet with after bath. The story of this purchase went around, and the king decided to pay a visit to Bhadra’s house to see for himself the extent of means that one of his subjects owned. The fact of the king coming was unknown to Shalibhadra, and when asked by his mother to come down to pay homage to ‘the Master’, he did come down but was struck by the reference by his mother to the king as ‘his Master.’ This set Shalibhadra thinking: is there a Master above me? Troubled, he turned to his mentor, a Jaina monk, who pointed out to him that the only Master is above everyone else, up there in the heavens. This was the turning point in Shalibhadra’s life. Virakti is the answer, he said to himself. I shall turn to the only true Master that there is. Renouncing everything — wealth, wives, family — he sought Mahavira’s blessings, and became a recluse, a monk. Everything had turned full cycle.

Evidently, there is need to wind up here, and I wish to do this without going into the merit that accrues from listening to or reading this riveting story. But some details. The article that I referred to before centres on a Shalibhadra manuscript from Gujarat — although not illustrated in the usual Gujarati-Jaina style — which is now in a collection in Australia. It consists of 20 folios virtually, each of which carries both text and images. It was scripted by Dayaldas in the Samvat year 1839 (1782 CE), and was written for Gopaldasji, devotee of the Jaina muni, Bhavanidasji.