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LIFE OF MAHÁVÍRA.
now houseless, a wanderer, a speaker of the truth, eating only what had no fault, having no vessel either to receive presents, or to make oblations, (to the gods or manes)*, regardless of the rules prescribed about natural evacuations, phlegm, and the scurf of the skin, indifferent about gratification from his mind, his speech, or his body, restraining the mind, the speech, and the body, sensual appetite, anger, courtesy, affection, and desire; altogether free from pride, perturbation, sin, and selfishness, having no gold, plate, nor coin; and as water does not enter the substance of the brazen vessel that is dipped into it, nor sound into that of the conch which emits it, so his soul was not subject to the accidents of mortality, but like the firmament, raised above the world, unrestrained like air and fire, and pure as the showers in spring. He was perfect in beauty like the lotus leaves, like the tortoise he had restrained all his corporeal organs, he was single and alone, like the horn of the rhinoceros, like a bird not easily caught, like the eagle, never off his guard, strong as an elephant, patient as a bullock under his
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* The original is आयाणभंडमत्तनिखेवणसमिए the last word in Sanskrit is f and properly means indifferent, though the force of it comes to be, regardless, as afterwards once translated.
