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CONDITIONS OF EARLY EXISTENCE
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in his time, and there was some scanty and irregular rainfall for the first time.
Prasenājit was the last but one of the Iculakaras. In his time children came to be born with the prasenā (the amnion or membrane in which a child is born), whence his name, Prasenājit. Before his time children were not born wrapped in a membrane.
The last of the kulakaras was Nābhi Rai, as already stated. He was the wisest man of his age. He earned his epithet (Nābhi Rai) from the fact that he taught men how to cut the navel chord termed nābhi (the navel), which had now got to be cut. Thick rain clouds now began to gather in the sky freely. It would appear that perhaps up to the time of Marud Deva the existence of the Icalpa trees (or may be some other natural force, inimical to cloud-formation) had prevented rain clouds in the sky; but in his time rain sometimes fell, and by the time of the fourteenth manu both rain and clouds became a regular feature of the natural aspect of things.
Spontaneous cultivation also appeared in the time of the fourteenth mani, as well as fruit trees.
As regards penal laws there was no need for elaborate measures thus far. As already stated, the first five kulakaras found it enough to rebuke
