Article: Malli

Statue of Malli
Image by Hiart; Honolulu Academy of Arts © public domain

A Jina is not an enlightened being who exists alone after reaching omniscience. After perfect knowledge comes general preaching – samavasaraṇa. This sermon, which is attended by all, is reported in the scriptures as resulting in large numbers of listeners being inspired. Many turn to religious life, becoming monks or nuns, while many others make the vows that lay people – śrāvaka and śrāvikā – can follow in their everyday lives. Further, the Jina’s teachings are preserved and passed on by his chief disciples – the gaṇadharas. This is why a Jina is also called a Tīrthaṃkara, meaning ‘ford-maker’ or ‘founder of a community’.

Each Jina establishes a ‘fourfold community‘, led by the chief disciples. Made up of monks, nuns, lay men and lay women, the fourfold community follows the principles the Jina has set out in his preaching. How members follow the religious teachings vary according to whether they remain householders or take initiation into mendicancy. Individual figures relating to each Jina are thus important.

Fasting unto death
Image by British Library © CC0 1.0 (Creative Commons Public Domain)

After listening to a Jain ascetic called Dharmaghoṣa, King Bala of Vītaśoka in Mahā-videha renounces worldly life, becomes a monk and reaches emancipation. His son, Mahā-bala, succeeds him on the throne.

Mahā-bala has six childhood friends:

• Acala
• Dharaṇa
• Pūraṇa
• Vasu
• Vaiśravaṇa
• Abhicandra.

All seven men were born on the same day and have grown up together. They are so close that they have decided that they will do everything with mutual consent.

After hearing an ascetic who had come to preach, Mahā-bala resolves to become a Jain monk. When he tells his friends they all decide to do the same.

The men are exemplary ascetics. Once they agree that whatever fast one practises, whether short or long, the others will do the same.

The monk Mahā-bala acquires a karma that determines his future birth as a woman – itthi-ṇāma-goyaṃ kammaṃ. This is the result of his behaviour, because he wants to outdo his friends secretly. If his six friends observe a one-day fast, he fasts for two days. If they keep a two-day fast, he fasts for three days and so on.

With the permission of their religious teacher, the seven monks perform various types of increasingly difficult fasts. When their bodies have become emaciated, they ask his permission to fast unto death. After this they are reborn as gods in the ‘Unsurpassable’ heaven – Anuttara – called Jayanta.

Later on, the six friends are born as princes and become kings, each ruling a region of India.

Mahā-bala, however, is reborn as a girl.

The account of the sixth Aṅga does not comment or analyse this any further. But in later sources, the mistake of Mahā-bala is named as deceit or treachery – māyā – which is one of the four main ‘passions’ – kaṣāya – in the Jain system. This is considered characteristic of women in general.

In Hemacandra’s work Mahā-bala’s ambiguous destiny is twice described as having been caused by his deceit. Hemacandra writes:

Because of penance mixed with deceit, he acquired woman-inclination-karma strī-veda and also the body-making-karma of a Tīrthakṛt because of the [guru-]sthānas, devotion to the Arhats, et cetera

Triṣaṣṭiśalākāpuruṣacaritra volume IV, page 53

He then describes it thus:

[Her mother] bore a daughter because of the female-birth karma produced by deceit in a former birth

page 54

White lotus
Image by Haha169 © public domain

The future destiny of Mahā-bala’s soul as a Jina is announced to the mother when she experiences the 14 auspicious dreams. These are dreamed by all women who bear the Jinas.

During her pregnancy, the mother develops a fancy for flowers of all sorts. She gets her wish and in due course gives birth to the ‘19th Tīrthaṃkara’. The baby is named Mallī – ‘Jasmine’ – in reference to the pregnancy whim.

Mallī turns into an extremely beautiful young lady. Through her clairvoyance – avadhi-jñāna – she recognises that her six friends who shared their previous lives as devout monks are in love with her. She uses a device to teach them right behaviour.

Princess Mallī orders a pavilion to be made, constructed with a central room surrounded by six connected rooms. She commissions a life-size statue of herself to be installed on a pedestal in the central room. The statue is hollow, with a hole at the top. The hole is covered with a lotus. Through this hole, Mallī drops food every day, then covers the hole with the lotus again. After a few days, the rotting food starts to stink.

The six kings come to Mallī’s father asking to marry her. This part of the story has distinct incidents for each of the kings, with new characters coming into the tale.

Rebuffed by Mallī’s father and feeling humiliated, they all decide to attack and besiege Mithilā, his capital city.

Mallī advises her father to tell each of the kings that she will marry him, and that he should come at night to the pavilion. Messages are sent separately to each of them. Each of the kings arrives and is directed to a different room in the pavilion. When the king arrives he is overwhelmed by the beauty of Mallī but he sees the statue instead of the living woman. When Mallī herself enters, she removes the lotus cover. The princes are disgusted by the stench that billows from the lovely statue. Mallī explains that in the same way the body is bound to deteriorate and therefore one should not feel love or attachment to it. She recalls facts of their common previous births, which they remember fully when she talks of it.

Mallī decides to renounce worldly life. Designated so far in the story as ‘Princess Mallī’ or ‘this Mallī’ with feminine gender, she is now called:

• ‘Mallī the Arhat’
• ‘Mallī the Jina’
• Mallinātha or Lord Malli.

The six kings put their sons in charge of their kingdoms and follow the same path.

The further stages of Mallī’s career are the usual ones for a Jina’s life.

Two unusual details are noteworthy, however. These relate to the periods of time that a Jina usually spends in certain activities. The Jina Malli:

• spends only a very small part of her life as a princess, namely 100 years out of a total of 55,000
• takes initiation and reaches omniscience on the same day so there is no period as a wandering mendicant between the two events, and also no period of testing, which involves possible challenges to asceticism.

Heavenly pleasures
Image by British Library © CC0 1.0 (Creative Commons Public Domain)

King Vaiśravaṇa of Vītaśoka goes to a forest, where he sees a magnificent tree and thinks it is a good comparison for him. When he comes back later, the tree has been struck by lightning and is now totally destroyed.

He realises that change and impermanence characterise all things and make them lose their power and beauty. The king puts his son on the throne, goes to a monk and takes initiation.

The former king is a perfect ascetic and forms for himself the karma that leads to future rebirth as a Jina. However, before this he is reborn among ‘Unsurpassable gods’ – Pañca Anuttara – in the heaven called Aparājita.