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136
Mahāvīra's Words by Walther Schubring
3.
26 1. The effects of (pointed) grass, of cold, of heat and gadflies and mosquitoes [all these]
various attacks he endured, always attentive. 2. (126) When he wandered through desolate
Lādha: through Vajjabhūmi and Subbhabhūmi, he got used to a hard bed and hard seat. 30 3. [There) in Lādha [regions] he had many disturbances: the inhabitants treated him
badly, then the alms corresponded to the inhospitable land; the dogs there bit him [and] attacked him. 4. Hardly anyone held back the wild, ferocious dogs, they let them go after him 127 after beating them so that the dogs bit the monk. 5. Such people were indeed very
many, Vajjabhūmi, (120) [a] crude [country]:128 monks stayed there (only) after they had 43,5 equipped themselves with knotted sticks. 6. Even when they stayed there so [equipped]
they had been attacked by dogs and were dragged by dogs - [yes, it was) difficult to wander there in Lādha. 7. [Now] the Lord who 'laid down weapons against beings' and had surrendered to them] his body, bore it [also), thanks to his insight, when he confronted piercing (speech) in the villages; 8. [the Nāya-Son) like an elephant (nāga)
on the frontline so did he penetrate through there, the great hero. 10 So, there in Lādha he once reached no village for a long time; 9. as he, then, without
wanting anything, went towards (such a village) and had not yet (at all) reached the edge of the village, they came out towards him and did him wrong by calling out [at the same time):“Go away from here!" 10. He was beaten immediately with a stick, with the fist,
the hand, or (pelted) with a lump of earth or a potsherd; "beat him to death, beat him to 15 death"129 screamed many. 11. First one cut his beard with a blunt knife, (then) ill-treated
[him] partly on the body!30 or hurled earth at him, one lifted him high up and thrust Chim] down (again), or took him away from his seat—[but) surrendering the body, patient in
suffering, undemanding, the Lord was completely devoted. 13. Like a brave 20 fighter on the frontline, (131) so was the great hero unapproachable at that time;
confronting crudeness the Lord continued with his mode of life unperturbed.
126 For the names appearing in this section see Jacobi 1884, p. 84 (WB). 127 Literally: "they let them make chuck-chuck." (See Appendix 4 for sight of monk being inauspicious.) 128 Vajjabhūmim instead of bhūmi which occurs in the verse instead of bhūmi; insert comma after bahave. 129 hantā hantā, literally: "a murderer!", (cp. 34, 25) or "look here!" 10 parissahāim has been left out; I presume a corruption here. Is Read sagama-sise as with Verclas 1978, p. 85 (WB).
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