The fourteen ratnas
Seven things and seven people, each the answer to one obstacle on the march.
Seven are one-sensed: the cakra that leads, the parasol that covers the camp, the staff that breaks the cave doors, the sword, the hide that carries an army over water, the maṇi that lights the dark, and the kākiṇī that writes. Seven are living: the general, the steward, the architect, the priest, the elephant, the horse and the queen.
Where they arose, for Bharata: the four weapons in his armoury; the hide, the maṇi, the kākiṇī and the nine nidhis in his treasury; the four men in Vinītā; the elephant and the horse at the foot of Vaitāḍhya; the queen in the northern row of the Vidyādharas.
Only two sizes are stated. The maṇi is four fingers; the kākiṇī four fingers each way, six-sided, twelve-edged, eight suvarṇas in weight. The rest are not given in the text this atlas could read, and are left blank rather than filled from a blog. Attendants likewise: sixteen thousand yakṣas round the cakra, a thousand each for the maṇi and the kākiṇī, and no count for the others.
A Vāsudeva, who rules three khaṇḍas, carries seven: Pāñcajanya, Sudarśana, Kaumodakī, Śārṅga, Nandaka, Vanamālā, Kaustubha. One manuscript caption counts eight.
Measurements and counts
| Count | 14 |
|---|---|
| One-sensed | 7 |
| Living | 7 |
| Sizes stated | 2 of 14 |
| Yakṣas round the cakra | 16,000 |
| Yakṣas for maṇi, kākiṇī | 1,000 each |
| A Vāsudeva carries | 7 |
Connected
Aśva
The horse. Arose at the foot of Vaitāḍhya with the elephant (§18).
No deed of its own is told in the passages read, and no name is given.
| Class | living |
|---|---|
| Arose | the foot of Vaitāḍhya (Bharata's) |
Cakra
The discus. It arose in the armoury and rolled out of the east gate; Bharata followed it a yojana a day, "like light behind a torch".
Sixteen thousand yakṣas stand round it "as if door-keepers" (§1, §18). An eight-day festival greeted it. No size is stated in the text this atlas could read.
| Class | one-sensed |
|---|---|
| Arose | the armoury (Bharata's) |
| Yakṣas | 16,000 |
Carma
The hide. Touched, it "expands for twelve yojanas" and spreads on water like oil; it carried the army over the Sindhu and the Gaṅgā, and under the rain the whole camp stood on it (§8, §10).
Grain sown on it at dawn ripens by evening, which is how the steward fed the army through the seven days.
| Class | one-sensed |
|---|---|
| Arose | the treasury (Bharata's) |
| Spreads to | 12 yojana |
Daṇḍa
The staff. Struck the diamond doors of Tamisrā "three times, like a drum", and they opened (§9); Khaṇḍaprapātā's opened at the first blow (§14).
No size is stated in the text this atlas could read.
| Class | one-sensed |
|---|---|
| Arose | the armoury (Bharata's) |
Gaja
The elephant. Arose at the foot of Vaitāḍhya (§18). Through Tamisrā the maṇi rode on his forehead "like a golden cover on a full pitcher" (§9).
No name is given.
| Class | living |
|---|---|
| Arose | the foot of Vaitāḍhya (Bharata's) |
Gṛhapati
The steward. Under the seven-day rain he sowed grain on the hide at dawn and reaped it at dusk (§10).
No name is given.
| Class | living |
|---|---|
| Arose | Vinītā (Bharata's) |
Khaḍga
The sword. Carried by the general on his campaigns across the rivers (§8).
No deed of its own, and no size, in the passages read.
| Class | one-sensed |
|---|---|
| Arose | the armoury (Bharata's) |
Maṇi
The gem. Four fingers, "brilliant like the sun" (§9). Set on the elephant's forehead it lit Tamisrā; set in the parasol it lit the camp under the rain.
A thousand yakṣas attend it.
| Class | one-sensed |
|---|---|
| Arose | the treasury (Bharata's) |
| Size | 4 fingers |
| Yakṣas | 1,000 |
Purohita
The priest. Arose in Vinītā with the other three men (§18).
No deed of his is told in the passages read, and no name is given.
| Class | living |
|---|---|
| Arose | Vinītā (Bharata's) |
Senāpati
The general, Suṣeṇa. He crossed the Sindhu and the Gaṅgā on the hide and took the four outer khaṇḍas one by one (§8, §13, §16), and opened both caves.
The only one of the seven living ratnas the text names in Bharata's march.
| Class | living |
|---|---|
| Arose | Vinītā (Bharata's) |
| For Bharata | Suṣeṇa |
Strī
The queen, Subhadrā, daughter of the Vidyādhara king Vinami, given after the twelve-year war (§12). Kṛtamāla's gift of "divine ornaments, of which the tilaka is the fourteenth" had been laid up for her at the door of Tamisrā (§7).
The only strī-ratna narrated; the other eleven Cakravartins' queens rest on the Samavāyāṅga list alone.
| Class | living |
|---|---|
| Arose | the northern Vidyādhara row (Bharata's) |
| For Bharata | Subhadrā |
Vārdhaki
The architect — vārdhaki here, sthapati in the Digambara list. In Tamisrā he laid a stone causeway over the two rivers Unmagnā and Nimagnā, "the joints fitted so closely that it looked as if made of one stone" (§9).
No name is given.
| Class | living |
|---|---|
| Arose | Vinītā (Bharata's) |
| Digambara name | sthapati |