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27. 24. ]
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merits as well as demerits, the other merely acts as a cause. [62]
Advising thus, the patriarch spoke to the attending hermits and went away.
On this side, while the (royal) retinue was enjoying the happiness of this unforeseen festival; and as the fast-breaking time passed away, king Gunasena remembered, "To-day, it is the fastbreaking time of that great hermit. O my misfortune! The fast, I think, of that great hermit is not broken." He asked the servants that were near, "Did that highsouled hermit come here or not?" Then they searched carefully and informed "Sir, he did come; but as the servants were careless due to delight of the auspicious occasion of the birth of a son to the queen, nobody received him; hence he instantly went out." The king said "Alas, what a result of my sins! I consider even the auspicious occasion of the birth of a son to the queen as a calamity as it has made an obstruction to the religious duty of the great hermit; really the showers of splendour do not fall on the houses of the people of meagre merit. Being tainted with the blot of carelessness, I am not even able to see his face,-even to know the consequence. Hence go,O priest Somedeva,so that the servants may not know my intention; find out what has happened to that great hermit and let me know quickly what he has done; my heart as it were suspects." Priest So medeva, so ordered, went to the penace-forest. He saw Hermit Agnis'arman; who was surrounded by many hermits; who was in a bower situated near the bank of a mountain-river:
