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CHAPTER X
THE SAMAVASARANA
“For a whole year he stood erect. The Gods said unto him, Why standest thou, o Vratya? He answered and said, Let them bring my couch. They brought the .couch for that Vratya . ... The Vratya ascended the couch. The hosts of Gods were his attendants, solemn vows his messengers, and all creatures his worshippers ......"*_The Atharva Veda, Chapter XV.
The description of the heavenly Pavilion erected by the devas for the WORLD TEACHER'S preaching is beyond words. It was the work of devas, and excelled everything that the human
* Griffith has the following note on the legend in his translation of the Atharva Veda (see p. 199, Vol. II):
" It is hard to understand, and I do not attempt to explain, the idealization and the grotesquely extravagant glorification of the Vratya or heretical nomad who appears at one time to be a supernormal Being endowed with the attributes of all-pervading Deity, and at another as a human wanderer in need of food and lodging
But the story fits, most beautifully, into the framework of the Life of Rişabha Deva, who Tas, undoubtedly, only a human wanderer at first, and who became, in consequence of the observance of the vratas (vows), an all-knowing (metaphorically, all-pervading) God, and was then attended upon by devas (gods) and worshipped by all creatures.
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