________________
GLIMPSES ALONG LIFE'S JOURNEY
27
who knew of their inner illumination, sat before them with folded hands and prayed them to narrate his own and Srimati's previous lives. The Saints related the previous lives of Bajrajangha from that of Jaya Varmā, and then described those of Śrimati. She was in one of her past lives a Vaisya girl, by name Nirnāmā, and lived in poverty and squalor. One day she met an illumined Saint, the Sage Pihitāsrava, and asked him the cause of her ill luck. She was told that it was the effect of her insulting an ascetic in one of her earlier lives, when she was known as Dhanasri. She had on one occasion thrown a dog's flesh before Sri Samādhigupta saint; but had immediately repented of it on being gently warned by the Saint, who also told her how to expiate her sin by special fasts. She observed the fasts properly, and became Nirnāmā; and afterwards was reborn as Svayam Prabhā, in the heavens, in consequence of her asceticism.
Bajrajangha put many questions to the Saints about the past lives of some of his friends and companions, and finally asked one of them to narrate the previous histories of the four animals that sat so quiet and fearless among men, and molested no one. The Saint said that the Lion was one Ugrasen, a Vaisya by caste, in his previous incarnation, and was of an exceedingly
