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Life of Lord Mahâvîra
King S'astipala. There having spent the season of rest at the royal court, in the fourth month, in the seventh demi-lunation, on the night immediately preceding the new moon, was the time of the adorable ascetic hero completed, his earthly career finished, the bands of decay and death loosed, and he entered on a state of perfect bliss, wisdom, liberty, freedom from care and passion, and absence of all pain.
On the night on which the adorable ascetic hero was delivered from all pain, Gotama Indrabhuti, the chief of his perfectly initiated disciples, had the bonds of affection by which he was tied to his preceptor cut asunder, and attained infinite. certain, and supreme intelligence and perception. On the same night the Navamallika and Navalechhiki, kings who reigned at Kasi and Kosala, after performing the fast of the new moon and sitting awhile motionless, said, "Since the light of intelligence is gone, let us make an illumination of material substances." On the same night the planet Kshudra Bhasmaka, destined to continue two thousand years, ascended the natal constellation of the Lord Mahâvîra, and as long as it continues there, there will be a great waning of piety and religious worship, among male and female ascetics and religious persons, but when the planet descends from that constellation, ascetism and piety will blaze forth with new brilliance.
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The venerable ascetic Mahâvîra lived thirty years as a householder, and then twelve years and six months and a full half month more a sage only in outward guise; thirty years less six and a holy month in the exercise of perfect wisdom, altogether having lived seventy-two years. At that time the four Charans* of this Avasarpini, i.e. Vedani, Ayu, Nama, and Gotra, were finished, and the fourth Ara, called Dukhamasukhama, had all expired except three years, and eight and a half months, in the city of Papa (Mag. Pawa), alone without a companion, performing the fast in which abstinence is kept up for three full days and nights, without even tasting water, under the constellation Svati, at a fortunate conjunction of the moon, in the morning, the lord sat down upon his lotus seat, while the public reading of the fifty-fifth lesson, which speaks of the fruits of righteousness and of sin, was going on. At that time repeating without a prompter the sixtysixth, called the chief lesson, he obtained emancipation, and
