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## Chapter 42: The Blessed Ascetic's Journey to Perfect Bliss
**18.** Then, that blessed ascetic, due to his previous virtuous conduct, experienced a spiritual awakening in the following manner:
He thought, "I have become emaciated through this austere practice," and so on, just as the Skandaka had thought. He questioned, and ascended the Great Mountain with the elders. He performed a one-month Sanlekhana. He observed the nine-month Diksha Paryaya, and then, after a period of time, he ascended above the moon, and beyond the sun, planets, constellations, and stars, and the nine celestial vehicles, and finally, he attained the state of a Deva in the Sarvarthasiddha Vimāna.
The elders, after the blessed ascetic's departure to heaven, descended from the Great Mountain and said, "These are the religious articles of the blessed ascetic."
"Bhanta!" said Bhagavan Gautama, and asked Bhagavan Mahavira the same question as Skandaka had asked.
Bhagavan Mahavira replied, "Bhanta! The blessed Deva's state is said to last for thirty-three Sagaropama." "Bhanta! Where do those Devas go? Where do they attain liberation?" "Gautama! They attain liberation in the Mahavideha."
Thus, this is the account of the first teaching, as narrated by the Samanas, and as recorded in the scriptures.
**End of the First Teaching.**
**Note:** The text uses several Jain terms, including:
* **Anuttaropapatikadasha:** The state of a liberated soul.
* **Anugara:** An ascetic.
* **Sarvarthasiddha:** A state of perfect bliss.
* **Vimāna:** A celestial vehicle.
* **Deva:** A celestial being.
* **Sanlekhana:** A fast unto death.
* **Diksha Paryaya:** A period of intense spiritual practice.
* **Sagaropama:** A unit of time, equivalent to a vast period.
* **Mahavideha:** The state of liberation.