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NARRATIVE TALE IN JAIN LITERATURE
II THE ASCETIC LIFE OF THE GREAT HERO The Ascetic Life of the "Great Hero" from the Ācārānga:
He wandered naked and homeless. People struck him and mocked at him-unconcerned, he continued in his meditations. In Lādha the inhabitants persecuted him and set the dogs on him. They beat him with sticks and with their fists, and threw fruits, clods of earth and potsherds at him. They disturbed him in his meditations by all sorts of torments. But “like a hero in the forefront of the battle," Mahāvīra withstood it all. Whether he was wounded or not, he never sought medical aid. He took no kind of medicaments, he never washed, did not bathe and never cleaned his teeth. In winter he meditated in the shade, in the heat of summer he seated himself in the scorching sun. Often he drank no water for months. Sometimes he took only every sixth, eighth, tenth or twelfth meal, and pursued his meditations without craving.
III
THE MISERABLE PLIGHT OF MEN In the Sūtrakṛtānga the miserable plight of men is said:
"It is not myself alone who suffers, all creatures in the world suffer; this a wise man should consider, and he should patiently bear (such calamities) as befall him, without giving way to his passions."3
“And then they make him do what they like, even as a wheelwright gradually turns the felly of a wheel. As an antelope caught in a snare, so he does not get out of it, however he struggles.
"Afterwards he will feel remorse like one who has drunk milk mixed with poison; considering the consequences a worthy monk should have no intercourse with women."...
3. I, 2, 1, 13, translated by Jacobi in SBE, Vol. 45, p. 251.
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