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RIŞABHA DEVA answering his question. As a matter of fact, the Presence of the Teacher in itself furnished an answer to a good many questions of the assemblage. He was Religion personified in Himself! He was also the embodiment of Faith, Knowledge and Conduct of the Way, the Truth and the Life, as some have said! One had simply to see Him to understand what Salvation meant. His illimitable Knowledge was reflected to a certain extent in the Halo of Glory which surrounded Him and which depicted the past seven lives of all living beings! To see Him was to see God, to hear Him was to be filled with heavenly joy!
The Lord's Discourse, which is gathered up by the Chief Disciples, comprises twelve angas (departments), and is generally represented by a tree with twelve branches. It is this Tree of Wisdom Divine which is the real friend of the seeker after release from the pain and misery of embodied life; and it is not a mere coincidence that we read in the Bible: “ In the midst . . . of it'.. :was there the tree of life, which bare twelve manner of fruits . . . and the leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations." What this means becomes clear with reference to another part of the Bible itself (Proverbs, iii, 13—18): “Happy is the man that findeth wisdom, . . . . Her ways are ways of pleasantness,
