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.92
Lord Mahâvîra
bed out of sand. They sat on it. They sat in the padmasana posture with their faces turned towards the east and submitted as follows with folded hands
"Bow we to the Victor/Arihantas, till the Liberated souls. Bow we to Sramana Bhagavân Mahâvîra who is about to be liberated. Bow we to Parivrajaka Ambada, our spiritual master, spiritual guide.
"Earlier, we had renounced for good to our spiritual master, Amvada, injury to living beings in general, falsehood in general, usurpation in general, but now we renounce for good all sex behaviour in general, accumulation in general.
"Now to Sramana Bhagavan Mahâvîra we renounce injury to life in all respects, till all accumulation, all types of anger, pride, attachment, greed, malice, infight,...till the thorn of wrong faith, we renounce all activities not worth perpetrating we renounce all food, drink, dainties and delicacies, and that for good.
"And this our body which is covetable, delicate, beautiful, worth loving, worthy of confidence, respected by many, dear as a casket of ornaments, this our body for which we have been ever-vigilant, lest it should be exposed to cold weather, to hot weather, it should suffer from hunger, from thirst, it should be troubled by the reptiles, it should be robbed by thieves, it should be bitten by the drones and mosquitos, it should be the victim of diseases, or it should be made to bear hardships and troubles inflicted by the gods, this our body we throw out by breathing the final breath."
So saying, they gave up their consciousness of the physical existence, all sorts of food and drink and became motionless like a tree without coveting for death. The said Parivrajakas thus passed many a meal-time without food, and then having kept carefully apart from lapses and being in a totally tranquil state of mind, they passed away at certain point in the eternal time, to be born as celestial beings in Brahmaloka, with a span of stay as long as ten sagaropamas, with propitiation of life thereafter, the rest as before. 13, Su. 39
Gautama Bhante! Why do you say so?
Mahâvîra Gautama! Because of his inherent humility, till politeness, because of his incessant fasting missing six meals at a time, because of his hard penance with hands raised skyward
