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so no harm would come to them, but the others would be pitilessly destroyed. Why not let them both fight it out and decide who was to be the world-emperor ?
JAIN JOURNAL
The combat was to be divided into three contests-staring, dousing, and boxing. Bahubali easily outstared his brother, and then both went to a pond for the next contest. The contestants had to splash water on each other, and the one to be overwhelmed by the other's splashes would lose. Here Bahubali's greater height stood him in good stead, for while the jets he flung at his brother over-powered him, the splashes from Bharata did not come up even to Bahubali's face.
They then went on to wrestle. Here too Bahubali was victorious; after some bouts, he lifted Bharata on to his shoulder, and the bystanders felt they were looking at the Himalaya being hauled up on Nilagirifor Bharata was fair and Bahubali dark.
Blinded with fury, the emperor's eyes rolled in anger. He thought of only one thing-how to avenge his outraged pride. Brushing aside all the rules of the contest, he flung his discus at his brother but far from striking him down it only circled him and bounced back to its owner. Bahubali then rushed towards Bharata, and lifting him up once more put him down again. The elder's humiliation was complete.
At this moment, Bahubali was suddenly overwhelmed by the futility of it all, sovereignty, world, existence and everything. He saw that the yearning for imperial power, the cause of such shame to his brother, could not be anything but a source of misery, and was impermanent anyhow. Sovereignty was like an unfaithful wife who abandoned her husband for other men. As the creeper of royal power was thorny, he would seek the thornless imperium of asceticism.
With these thought he went to a forest, where he stood motionless, his arms hanging loosely down his sides. Creepers covered him and serpents, with hoods flared, crawled round him, making him look horrific. The breath of the serpent young at his feet coalesced to form the illusion of a dark poisonous shoot. But the fire of their breathing was cooled by the power of his calm. His long black locks fell on his shoulders, giving him the appearance of a sandalwood tree fringed with black serpents. The flowering spring creeper embraced him like a loving woman, and when its leaves were plucked away by the Vidyadharis it looked again like a woman sorrow-striken at her lord's feet.
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