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A. CHAKRAVARTI :
birds they had to offer to Kāli for the queen had given birth to a child as the result of Kāli's blessing. The Jaina ācārya informed those persons that the Goddess would be quite satisfied if baked clay models of animals and fowls were set up as their offerings before the Kāli temple. Such a procedure would be quite enough to satisfy the Goddess and to fulfil their vows. Further, it would relieve a number of animals from death and also save themselves from the sin of hiņsā. This teaching evidently appealed to the people at large who drove away all their animals back to their homes. This behaviour of the people very much upset the Goddess Kāli who realised that she was not capable of frightening away the Jaina ascetic because of his superior spiritual culture. But now she wanted to drive him away from the precincts of the Kāli temple so that he might not interfere with the regular sacrifice. Hence she went about in search of her chief, the great Nīlakēšī, of the southern country, before whom the complaint was placed as to the Jaina ascetic's interference with the regular sacrifice and worship at the Kāli temple. The great Nīlakēśī marched towards the north in order to get rid of this Jaina yõgin and to restore regular worship and sacrifice at the Kāli temple at the city of Pundravardhana. Nilakēśī created there several frightening situations hoping to drive away Municandrācārya. All her attempts to frighten the yõgin proved futile. He was not the person to be easily got rid of. He was firmly rooted in his practice of yoga and no amount of dreadful circumstances created in the environment would affect his calm and peaceful meditation. He went on as if nothing had taken place around him.
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