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[631
COMMENTATOR
Time is a traveler who will not wait, At no point did it ever come to stay; Mahavir had completed twenty-eight Earth-years of life; His parents passed away After beholding in his flowering youth, Eternal beauty and eternal truth.
Parents who thirsted for the Light of God And sought it unfatigued, day after day; High contemplation was the path they trod; On either side of it the blinding play Of kindled lights proclaiming that One Light: Mahavir's parents vanished out of sight Into his Vision where, enthroned they sat, Crowned with what emperorship of Inwardness Mahavir secretly kept gazing at,
While, outwardly, beyond all mortal guess, He had already won the game of chess Life plays with death; and, with the final pawn, Death was defeated, darkness was withdrawn. (stage is darkened. Voice continues to drums and dundubhi)
Mahavir stood before his elder brother And said give me permission to depart, I have fulfilled the oath I gave to mother While yet within her womb, a cradled babe, A solitary image in her heart;
This being now hath turned an astralabe To measure summits earth may not conceive, Summits undrenched by hues of dawn and eve Making time possible. Behold, I climb
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