Mahavira His Life and Teachings

Author(s): Bimla Charn Law
Publisher: Luzac and Co UK

Page 50

LIFE
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second has been given in Lecture I of the Uväsagadasão. According to the Buddhist texts, the form of his first declaration or address was: 'I am all-knowing and all-seeing, and possessed of an infinite knowledge. Whether, I am walking or standing still, whether I sleep or remain awake, the supreme knowledge and intuition are present with me, constantly and continuously. There are, O Nirgranthas, some sinful acts you have done in the past, which you must now wear out by this acute form of austerity. Now that here you will be living restrained in regard to your acts, speech, and thought, it will work as the nondoing of karma for future. Thus by the exhaustion of the force of past deeds through penance and the non-accumulation of new acts, (you are assured) of the stoppage of the future course of rebirth, from such stoppage, of the destruction of the effect of karma, from that, of the destruction of pain, from that, of the destruction of mental feelings, and from that, of the complete wearing out of all kinds of pain
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The gift of supernormal vision was vouchsafed even to a householder,-to one who resided within his own house but conformed himself to the rule
* Majjhima, I, pp. 92-93.
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