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PHILOSOPHY OF SOUL
353
angry with him. He would do anything out of anger, so he thought it wise to leave the place.
He left the assembly hall but none respected him on the way, as if none knew him. He was deeply enraged. He reached home but even at home all gave him very cold response. The minister was deeply shocked and he preferred death to living the life of such humiliation.
He closed the doors of his rooms and with force tried to cut off his neck with a sword with no effect. He tried again to cut his throat. He struck the sword again and again on the throat but he could not die.
Anyhow he was determined to die. He placed 'Kālakuta' poison in his mouth. This poison is extremely deadly but he still survived. He then left the city for a lonely place in the wilderness, strangled his neck with a rope but the rope gave way.
Thereafter, he tied a slab of stone on his neck and plunged himself in the water but he floated like a wooden ball. He lighte the pyre and hurled himself in fire ablaze. Suddenly the rains poured and he could not die. Thus despite numerous endeavours to die, death did not seem to love him. He began to reflect, "To whom shall I go? Even death is not prepared to abate my miseries".
At this very moment god Pottiladeva uttered from the invisible regions, “Oh Tetaliputra, A big ditch is ahead, an intoxicated elephant pursues us in all darkness and there are showers of arrows. The village is set on fire. Where should one go under the circumstances"?
Tetaliputra caught the inner purport of these words. He replied. "Initiation into monkish order of life is the only resort of a person terrified with dangers all around as the hungry man finds resort in food, thirsty man in water, the diseased in remedy and the exhausted in a carriage. A monk with patience and self-restraint has nothing to fear from".
The invisible voice said, "When you have realized the truth proper, why do you not embrace that order of life? There was big illumination ablaze before the minister and he heard the words. "I am your wife, Pottila, I have come to tell you that you should
