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CHAPTER SIX
Founding of congregation (202–215) Told by the Laukāntikas, "Found a congregation," Malli gave gifts for a year with money supplied by the Jşmbhakas. When she was one hundred years old, twentyfive bows tall, her departure-festival being held by King Kumbha, Indras, et cetera, Malli got into the jeweled palanquin, named Jayantī, and went to the best garden, Sahasrāmravaņa. The Teacher of the World entered the garden which was adorned with fields of dark sugarcane 61 in some places, like the rising dark half of the moon; in some places with fields of white sugar-cane, like the bright half of the moon being up; marked with the ripe fruit of orange trees like rubies, shining with marjoram all over as if paved with sapphires, 62 with well-water being sipped and banyan trees being frequented by travelers suffering from cold, because of (their) warmth like a woman's breast, 58 adorned with blooming jasmines like the laughter of the Lakşmi of winter. 54
After a three-day fast Lord Malli became a mendicant with proper ceremony with a thousand men suitable for an outside retinue and three hundred women suitable for inside attendants on the eleventh day of the bright half of Mārga in the afternoon, the constellation being Aśvayuj. Malli's mind-reading knowledge arose just then, and on the same day omniscience arose at the foot of an aśoka. The samavasaraṇa was made by the gods, Sakra, et cetera, adorned with a caitya-tree three hundred bows high. Malli entered by the east door, circumambulated the caitya-tree, and said, “Reverence to the congregation." She sat on the eastern lion-throne, facing the east, and the Vyantasa-gods made images in the other directions at once. The holy
51 205. Krsneksu must be the dark purple cane.
62 206. Neither of these comparisons seems very felicitous, but cf. I, n. 213.
58 207. See III, n. 137. 64 208. Kunda, Jasminum pubescens, blooms in winter.
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