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RIȘABHA DEVA
as clairvoyant saints will tell your majesty, is now that he is dead here living in one of the higher heavens! Your majesty's own father, Atibala, who is still in the flesh, is likewise seeking lo enter nirvana, which he will do in this very life. All this is the result of severe self-denial on the proper dharmic path. On the other hand, we have seen how evil leads to degradation in the scale of life in the case of King Danda, who reincarnated as a serpent, in consequence of abandoning himself to excessive sense-indulgence. There is also the story of King Arabinda who was attacked with some hideous form of disease and who wanted to bathe himself in the blood of animals, because he had discovered, accidentally, that blood relieved his suffering. Accordingly he asked his son, Kurubinda, to dig a tank and to fill it up with the blood of animals. But Kurubinda had a good heart, and would not sacrifice so many innocent lives, even to please his father. He, therefore, had a tank dug and filled with reddish-coloured water. Arabinda discovered the deception practised by his son, and, boiling with rage, ran, with a drawn sword in his hand, to kill him. His cup of evil was, however, now full to the brim; he fell in his haste, and was pierced with his own weapon. His soul passed into the regions known, on account of the terrible condi
