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RELIGIOUS SECTS
the Mahánimitta of the eight Angas, intending probably their scriptural doctrines, set up for himself as a Jina, and quitted his master.
INDRA having declared that Mahávíra’s meditations could not be disturbed by men or gods, one of the inferior spirits of heaven, indignant at the assertion, assailed the Sage with a variety of horrors and temptations, but in vain. Mahávíra's pious abstraction was unbroken. He then wandered about and visited Kaušámbi, the capital of Satánika, where he was received with great veneration, and where his period of self-denial ended in perfect exemption from human infirmities. The whole of the time expended by him in these preparatory exercises was twelve years and six months, and of this he had fasted nearly eleven years. His various fasts are particularised with great minuteness, as one of six months, nine of four montlıs each, twelve of one month, and seventy-two of half a month each, making altogether ten years and three hundred and forty-nine days.
The bonds of action were snapped like an old rope, and the Kevalu, or only knowledge attained by MaháVIRA on the north bank of the Rijupáliká, under a Sál tree, on the tenth of the light fortnight Vaisakha, in the fourth watch of the day, whilst the moon was in the asterism Hasta. INDRA instantly hastened to the spot, attended by thousands of deities, who all did homage to the Saint, and attended him on his progress to Apápapuri, in Behár, where he commenced his instructions on a stage erected for the purpose
