your bridge home
Saints and Poets
Of all the places a monk could ask to spend the rains, he asks for the house he used to live in.
He lived with her for twelve years. Then he came back and spent four months in her house without touching her, and she is the one who changed.
Sthulabhadra was the son of Shakatala, chief minister at the Nanda court. As a young man he went to live with a courtesan of that court named Kosha.
Not for a night. For twelve years. He moved in.
Then his father was killed in the kind of court intrigue that killed ministers, and the ministry was offered to the son.
Sthulabhadra thought about the life that had just killed his father, refused the post, and became a Jain monk instead.
Years later the monks were dividing up where each of them would spend the chaturmas, the four months of the rains, when a Jain monk stays in one place so as not to tread on the small creatures the rain brings out.
Sthulabhadra asked his teacher Bhadrabahu for permission to spend it at Kosha's house.
The rest of this story, read aloud, and a new one every day.