Parabels of Mahavir

Author(s): Harindranath Chattopadhyaya
Publisher: Shri Kiran Publishers

Page 21

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measured the length and the breadth of the kingdom over which his father, the king, ruled.
He measured the heart of his mother, the queen; and knew that it was sad because she thought he was dead inside her; all because he lay utterly still, holding his breath so that she should not be troubled in the womb.
But it all turned out to be otherwise. "I must tickle her a little so that she knows I am quite alive !" the babe thought to himself So he tickled one corner of her womb with his tiny finger.
The queen's face flushed with the dawn of hope : "It lives ! it lives !" she said with excitement ! And the king took up the queen's words with equal excitement and shouted "It lives! it lives !" and these two words were taken up by the prince and the princess; and then by the king's retinue of servants; and within a little while, by the subjects of the entire Kingdom..
The fields which had begun to fade, had once again turned green with harvests. The sky put on a robe of such blueness as it had never worn before! The ocean leaped and crashed with wild joy and its waves clapped their hands and shouted to the hills : "It lives! It lives!” The winds blew across the palace top and whistled “It lives! It lives !"
But nobody and nothing knew the truth. The babe in the womb quietly thought to himself; “The whole world lives, but it does not know it lives in me !"