Lord Mahavira Vol 01

Author(s): S C Rampuria
Publisher: Jain Vishva Bharati Institute

Page 95

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Lord Mahavira (exhaust) karma, but who torture self by stopping the intake of food and drink, by practising celibacy, by hardship arising out of non-bath, cold, heat, mosquito, sweat, dust, dirt and mud, for short or for long, who are thus totured, such ones, dying at a certain point in eternal time, are born in one of the heavens occupied by the Vanavyantara gods as celestial beings. They are said to go to these heavens, reside there as so many celestial beings.
Gautama : Bhante! Of these celestial beings, of what length is their life-span?
Mahâvîra : Ten thousand years. i Gautama : Bhante! Do they have fortune, glow, fame, strength, vigour, vitality and prowess?
Mahâvîra : Yes, they have. Gautama : Bhante! Do they covet the next birth? Mahâvîra : No, they do not.
Such beings who reside in villages, mines, cities, etc., etc., who have their hands and feet tied with anduka made from iron/ wood, who are in fetters, who are trapped, who are in dark cells, with hands, feet, ears, noses, lips, tongue; crest, mouth, waist/ belly, or the place (shoulder) wherefrom hangs the sacred thread/ who have been pierced like a sacred thread, the flesh of whose heart has been cut, whose eyes have been taken out of the socket, whose teeth have been removed, whose testacles have been cut. whose throat has been pierced, whose flesh has been cut to the size of a grain of rice, who have been fed with their own flesh or those who have been tied to the branch of a tree by their hands, who have been dragged on the ground, who have been crushed through a machine, who have been placed on the lance or who have just been peirced by the lance on which they were placed, or on whom alkali has been spread or who have been hurled into alkali, who have been wrapped in raw hide or whose male organ (penis) have been removed, or those who have died in fire, who have been drowned in mud, who have been bogged in mud, who have slipped from restraint, who have died from some hardship like hunger, who have died from pain of dependence in enjoyment of objects, who have died by being misguided by sound like a deer, who have died on sheer ignorance, who have died