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BIRTH OF AJITA AND SAGARA
39 jeweled lion-thrones and instructed their respective Abhiyogika-gods : 68
"Listen! We must go now to the southern half of Bharata to perform the birth-ceremonies of the second Arhat who is born. Make then for us cars with roomy interiors, made of various gems, of large dimensions."
The Abhiyogikas, possessing strong powers, made the cars in accordance with their instructions, uneven with golden finials by the thousand, like offshoots of the cars of the Vaimānikas with comets; shining with gemmed pillars adorned with figures of śāl-wood like crowds of dancing girls tired out by fatigue from violent dancing; constantly ringing with rows of tinkling little bells like elephants with the loud noise of bells ; beautiful with diamond balconies like thrones of Sris; like suns with a thousand lights streaming forth : adorned on all sides with jeweled wolves, bulls, horses, men, antelopes, dolphins, haisas, śarabhas, yaks, elephants, kinnaras, forestcreepers, and heaps of lotus-tendrils on the walls, roofs, and tops of pillars, and showed them (to the Dikkumārīs).
The eight Dikkumārikās living in the lower world, clothed in devadūşya-cloth, their hair adorned with flowers : Bhogankarā, Bhogavati, Subhogā, Bhogamālini, Toyadhārā, Vicitrā, Puşpamāla, and Anindită, each one attended by four thousand Sãmānikis, each one joined by four mahattarās,"each one surrounded by seven great armies and each by seven generals, each one attended by sixteen thousand body-guards and by other powerful Vyantaragods and goddesses, got into their cars and set off eagerly in the northeast, with charming song and dance.
Then they made immediately a vaikriyasamudghāta 71 and made a staff innumerable yojanas long. They removed
80 152. The servant gods. See below, Chap. III. 70 164. Mahattarā. These seem to be goddesses equal in power the Dikkumārīs themselves, whose commands cannot be transgressed by the Dikkumāris. Ava. 184, p. 163 f.
71 168. See I, p. 118 and n. 157.
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