________________
rama a Ke kum ra was very happy with similar answers to his his 12 other questions by Gautama and saluting Gautama, along with his disciples, he accepted Lord Mah v ra's pamcamah vratas from him.
The philosophical conversation of Ke and Gautama had a great impact on the people gathered there. This union of the knowledgeable was the topic of discussion for a long time in r vast and resulted in great change in people's attitude and behaviour.
Then Mah v ra arrived in Hastin pura via Kur republic and sat in Sahasr mravana. King iva ruled over Hastin pura then. By nature, he was a contented, emotional and religious person. Once he woke up from sleep in the night and thought, “I am happy in everyway. I am progressing in terms of wealth, food-stock, friends, treasure, etc. yet it is not nice to spend a lifetime over the deposits of enjoyment and wealth. I should do something for my future. It would be good if I crown prince
ivabhadra as king tomorrow at sunrise and become a mendicant. In the morning, he became initiated as an ascetic and decided that he would continuously observe fasts and would wander keeping both his hands raised upwards, facing the Sun.
This way, he became a princely sage (r jar i). On the day he broke his fast; he would duly construct a ritual platform, make a ritual fire and after sacrifice and prayers to guest, have his food. This way, doing penance facing the Sun for a long time, Sage iva obtained ruptured knowledge. He started seeing and knowing matters across the seven seas. He was happy with an accomplishment of his and started saying that he had attained pure knowledge from his peance that nothing exists beyond the seven seas and seven islands. When Indrabh ti heard this, he asked the Lord. The Lord said -“No, on the earth there are innumerable islands and seas.” When people heard about the question and answer session of Gautama and Lord Mah v ra, they started discussing about sage iva and Mah v ra's statements. There were doubts in sage iva's mind and in this state of indecisiveness; he lost his ruptured knowledge. He thought - "Perhaps, something was lacking in my knowledge. Mah v ra must be right." Leaving the hermitage, he reached Sahasr mravana, and paying obescience to Mah v ra, sat at an appropriate place. When the Lord completed his sermon he pleaded -“Lord, please give me initiation into your nirgrantha order.” With the Lord's acceptance, he renounced the
314
