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350]
[The Last Upasarga
lead into the ears of a bed-chamber servant for a very trifling fault of his, and Lord Mahavira had to atone for that Karman now. The bed-chamber servant was born as a cowherd in this village. Lord Mahavira knew this. He came to that village and absorbed himself in meditation under a tree. The Cowherd, too, came there and stood before him. The soul of Mahavira was to suffer now for its past actions committed under the vanity of royal power.
In minute, the memory of the wrong done to him in one of his previous lives came to the mind of the cowherd. His lips began to quiver with anger. He brought two sharppointed pegs of wood and drove them right into the ears of the Lord. He had fitted them so very cleverly that they were not visible from outside. Although this caused unbearable pain to the body of the Lord, still he stood as patiently and as calmly as before. His idea was that there was no effect without some cause, and he felt that the root of his present trouble lay in some of his previous karmas. It seems that the following causes might have been at the root of the cruel feelings which had led the Lord in his birth as Triprishtha, to sow the seed of the Asatavedaniya Karmas (the Karmas by the maturing of which the soul experiences pain).
(1) Pride of his royal dignity.
(2) To look down on man in his vamnity of royalty. ( 3 ) Serious negligence towards rebirth and the Law of Karman.
(4) Jealousy produced by selfishness to see other people enjoying luxuries fit for him.
(5) To inflict punishment under a fit of anger, most licentiously and without making due consideration
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