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[ The Previous Lives of Lord Mahavira
repent and wail for losing for ever the warrior Vishvabhuti; and at length, followed by Vishakhanandi he went to persuade him to come back. The king asked him forgiveness for the fault he had committed, and requested him to leave his saintly guise and follow him back to the capital. He also gave him the temptation of making him king of the entire dominions but he who is mad for tasting the fruit of self-realisation cannot relish the dirty pleasures and material wealth of this world; for all these pleasures and material wealth of this world, put together cannot weigh more than the smallest partick of spiritual happiness. Consequently when the king and his brother found that they could not prevail upon Visvabhuti in any way they returned to the Capital in great disappointment.
This last incident fired all the more the feeling of detachment in the heart of Saint Visvabhuti. He thought thus when the simple fact of the springing of a feeling of detachment alone in his heart and accepting consecration could produce such results as to compel a king who was plotting against him to request him to accept the paramount power of the whole empire, why could not the wealth of allthe three worlds pour down at his feet, when he had become a real saint and attained the true knowlege of self. This idea incited him more and more to practise more severe penances which emaciated his body and made him very weak. After a period of time, he came to Mathura, where Vishakhanandi too had been staying with his army. He had come there in connection with his marriage ceremony which was going to be celebrated with the princess of that place. The saint Vishvabhuti who had completed his fast of one month's duration now wanted to break it; and with this intentions he was
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