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22 Kshamapana period of penance. He came to the rich city of Vaishali. For meditation he selected a blacksmith's desolate low-roofed house. The sick blacksmith had gone to live elsewhere for change of air. But the blacksmith recovered and returned. He saw that a monk had taken possession of his house. He thought that surely somebody has taken occupancy of his premises in his absence. He who believed that 'All land is God's land had taken possession of his land.
The blacksmith had recovered from a long illness. He had become irritable. Moreover, as soon as he stepped into his house, he saw this. Wild with anger, the blacksmith lifted a weighty sledge-hammer. He thought of hitting the weighty sledger-hammer hard on the monk's head so as to kill the monk in a moment. Some tried to dissuade the blacksmith, some tried to prevent him, and some warned him of the great sin of killing a monk. But as they tried to calm the blacksmith, his anger rose. At last, it was a question of life and death. The blacksmith lifted the weighty sledge-hammer and began to brandish it. Mahavir stood firm as before. No fear. No tremor. Resolute like Mount Meru he stood full of equanimity, engrossed in meditation. The monk's tranquility provoked the blacksmith all
Kshamapana 23 the more. He vigorously brandished the sledge. hammer. In a moment he would strike the monk and the latter would fall dead. But a strange thing happened!
As the blacksmith began to brandish the sledge-hammer, his hand started trembling. He was so excited that he wished to kill the monk there and then. The blacksmith's hand was arrested. Instead of being brandished forth, the sledge-hammer receded. It recoiled on the blacksmith who, just recovered from illness, killed himself through anger. Mahavir stood firm in meditation as before.
Anger hurts the angry person himself. How preverted a man becomes when he grows angry! His eyes are dilated and emit sparks. Sometimes he stamps his feet and sometimes he utters foul language. He who is angry defiles not only the other person but the whole atmosphere. That is why Shakespeare said that anger is deep like the sea and quick like the fire. Saint Tiruvalluvar says that fire burns whatever goes near it, but the fire of anger burns the whole family. An angry man closes his eyes and opens his mouth wide. Anger expels discrimination from the mind and bolts it out. Such anger can be compared to a stone thrown at a bee-hive; it soon gets
