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THE EXCELLENCE OF RIGHTEOUSNESS
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you give us something ?" Another spell of silence. Annoyed with this they would maltreat him.
Unruffled by all this, the Bhagavān would stand in the posture of meditation. Womeniolk got attracted to his body which was free from the bad smell of perspiration and filth, and to his mouth which was full of sweet breath. They used to inquire: "Where do you live? Where can one find this scented stuff? Who manufactures it? But the Bhagavan's sacred silence would continue.
Thus his extra-ordinary physique plus the fragrant anointment on it became the cause of his predicament. (A cărānga Cūrņi, p. 300).
4.
४. संवच्छरं साहियं मासं, जंण रिक्कासि वत्थगं भगवं। ___ अचेलए ततो चाई, तं वोसज्ज वत्थमणगारे॥ Samvaccharam sāhiyam māsam, jam ņa rikkäsi vat
thagam bhagavam. Acelae tato cai, tam vosajja vatthamanagāre.. The Bhagavān did not discard his one and the only one robe for thirteen months. The homeless and world-relinquishing Venerable One abandoned it for good and remained blissfully naked ever since.
ANNOTATION 4. The purport of the text seems to be that Bhagavān Mahavira initiated himself into ascetic life with a robe on, which he later discarded. He did so on principle.
Later tradition, however, has ii that when the Bhagavān was passing by the bank of the river Suvarnabāluka, his robe got caught up in some thorny bush and was swept away by the currents of the river. A brähmin who happened to pass by, picked it up.
The supposition that the said robe could have remained intact on the Bhagavān's shoulders for thirteen months after initiation, and that the Bhagavān discarded it just when it got caught up in a thorny bush, seems irrelevant and baseless. A much more plausible theory seems to be that the Bhagavan did not put on the robe to protect himself from cold but that he did so merely to cover up the privities. As a matter of fact, this is not alien to the Nirgyantha (the Jain) tradition. This is corroborated by the
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