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APRIL, 1981
127
Emaciated as Bahubali himself was through lack of food, he looked as if he were exhausted through satisfying the woman liberation. Yet not only was his body reduced, his karmas were too. The fire of his concupiscence, which had been fed by the fuel of sense objects, was but out by penance, and the categories of being began to be visible to him in sharp definiteness. It was as if his mind were a room lit by the lamp of knowledge revealing everything in its brilliance, including his karmas, which were as lampblack. The cleansing of his knowledge was accompanied by an ever greater purifying of his asceticism, for penance is to knowledge what a root is to a tree.
Effulgent from his austerities ... ... like a sun emerging from a cloud ... ...with its own rays ......his dark body cast over the jungle the radiance of a blue jewel. The wild animals, both the harmless and the preying ones, rested at his feet in tranquillity and affection. The tigress licked the heads of the young of buffaloes as if they were her own. Lionesses suckled young elephants, and cow-elephants the lion cubs.
Wishing to clear the space in front of the sage, elephnats sprinkled it with water brought in lotus petals. Clusters of lotuses were placed at his feet; the glow of the masses of dark serpents there made them look like garlands of blue lotuses offered to the Arhat. Creepers weighed down with brilliant flowers, appeared to be devotees bowed with offerings.
The whole jungle seemed to do a dance out of joy and devotion, the ever-flowering trees swaying in the wind, the serpents with their gem-flashing hoods moving to the murmur of the bees, and the peacocks to the notes of the koels. The greatness of this fully tranquil sage brought down a calm on the jungle. Vidyadharas constantly alighted from their chariots to honour the heavens without respite. Vidyadharis would come down to enjoy themselves by plucking away the creepers entwined round his body.
Bahubali came nearer and nearer to full enlightenment but was kept back from the climax by one obstruction : sorrow at having humiliated his brother. But Bharata 'was himself now thoroughly repentant of his wicked move to strike Bahubali down, and came back in a year, on the day of his brother's renunciation, to do him homage with his priests, ministers, kings, court and women. Ganges water was poured out, jewel lamps were lit, incense made of wishing-tree wood was burnt, offerings of pārijāta and other divine flowers were made, and other lavish ceremonies performed.
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