Page:The Heart of Jainism (IA heartofjainism00stevuoft).djvu/301

 JAINA MYTHOLOGY 273 and when every man's height was six miles, and the number of his ribs two hundred and fifty-six. The children born in this happy period were always twins, a boy and a girl, and ten Kalpavriksa (desire-fulfilling trees) supphed all their need ; for one tree gave them sweet fruits, another bore leaves that formed pots and pans, the leaves of a third murmured sweet music, a fourth gave bright light even at night, a fifth shed radiance like little lamps, the flowers of a sixth were exquisite in form and scent, the seventh bore food which was perfect both to sight and taste, the leaves of the eighth served as jewellery, the ninth was like a many-storied palace to live in, and the bark of the tenth provided beautiful clothes. (In many of the Jaina temples representations of the happy twins are carved, standing beneath these desire-fulfilling trees.) The parents of the children died as soon as the twins were forty-nine days old, but that did not so much matter, since the children on the fourth day after their birth had been able to eat as much food as was equal to a grain of corn in size, and they never increased the size of this meal, which they only ate every fourth day. The children never com- mitted the sin of killing, for during their whole lives they never saw a cooking-vessel or touched cooked food, and on their deaths they passed straight to Devaloka, without ever having heard of religion. In the next period, Susama, which, as its name indicates, was only half as happy as the first, the twins born into the world were only four miles high, had only one hundred and twenty-eight ribs, and only lived for two palya of time, but the ten desire-fulfilling trees still continued their kind offices. The parents of the children lived longer now (the Jaina, according to this, would seem not to consider the long life of their parents essential to their own happiness !) and did not die till the children were sixty-four days old ; and mean- while human appetite had so far increased that twins ate a meal equal to a jujube fruit three days after their birth, T