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Shri Mahavir Jain Aradhana Kendra
www.kobatirth.org
Acharya Shri Kailassagarsuri Gyanmandir
76
AJITASENA-VYAKARANAM lives conformed to the laws of the world and realised Nirvana. How it will benefit you if I live permanently. Suppose I comply with your request, it will not be of any profit to you. You should understand it and not be sorry.”
On hearing this they all began to weep more. After some time they said, “We do not know how long yet the most excellent Law of Bhagavā Sākyamuni will last?”
The Venerable said, “Listen attentively, the Tathāgata has already preached the sacred sūtra on the duration of the Law."
Then he told them briefly how Buddha Bhagavā had entrusted the most excellent Law to sixteen great Arhats and their followers and asked them to protect it so that it might not be destroyed.'
Schiefner in his Geschichte des Buddhismus (p. 62) mentions one Nandimitra as a bhikṣu who realised the Truth when Aśvagupta was in charge of the teaching at Pāšaliputra and when a son of king Kanishka was ruling at Puskalāvati, while the Tibetan work dPag. bsam. ljon, bzan (pp. 48, 51) mentions one dgah-baħi bấes-gñen restored by Mr. S. C. Das as Anandamitra (by Profs. Lévi and Chavannes as Nandimitra), and relates the cause of the disappearance of the excellent religion (btsan. pa. nub. pāḥi rgyu. ni).
The present treatise furnishes us with a clue to the identification of the Mahāśrāvaka Nandimitra with the Nandimitra of the Chinese work. In the latter, it is stated that the Arhat Nandimitra lived in a garden in the capital of king Sheng-chün in the Chih-shih-tzu titi I country. Watters was not very confident about the restoration from the Chinese words Sheng and Chün. Following Nanjio he suggested either Prasenajit or Jayasena, for Sheng means “to conquer, to get the victory” while Chün means "army, troops” (Williams, Syllabic Distionary of the Chinese
1 Sce JA., 1916, pp. 6-10.
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