Shraman Bhagvana Mahavira Part 1

Author(s): Ratnaprabhvijay, D P Thaker
Publisher: Parimal Publication

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become miserable. The rains becoming disagreeable will pour down as caustic, astringent, poisonous, or fiery showers, and people will suffer from catarrh, asthma, colic, leprosy, dropsy, fevers, head-aches, and numerous other diseases. Lower animals inhabiting land, water, and air, will live very miserably. Fields, forests, gardens, creepers, trees, and grass will be destroyed. All the mountain-ranges except the Vaitāḍhya-giri and Rṣabba-kūta, and all the valleys and pits will be levelled to the surface of the ground; and all the streams and rivers except the Ganges and the Indus will disappear. The beds of the Ganges and of Indus, will be immensely reduced, resembling the path produced by a moving chariot-wheel, Ground will resemble a sand-bank of heaps of ashes of live burning coal. At some places, the gro und will be full of heaps of dust, and at other places it will be full of dense mire. The height of human beings will be one hand (18 inches) and their bodies will have a filthy appearance. Males, as well as, females will talk harshly. They will be highly diseased, easily excited to anger, flat-nosed, shameless, and perfectly naked. The age-limit of males will be twenty years, and that of females will be sixteen years. During that period, the female will give birth to a child at an age of six years. At an age of sixteen years, she will have many children and she will be a very old dame. They will live in burrows underneath the Vaitāḍhya mountain range. There are rows of nine burrows each on both the banks of the Ganges and the Indus. Altogether there are seventy-two such burrows. Lower animals will remain in their primitive stages. All the human beings and lower animals will be carnivorous, cruel, and impolite. The course of water in the Ganges and the Indus will be of a size produced by a moving chariot-wheel, and it will be full of fishes and crabs. People will take out fishes from the river and leave them on the ground to be baked by the heat of the Sun during the day, and they will maintain themselves at night on the fish and crabs thus obtained. Nothing like milk, or curds, or juicy articles of food, or flowers or fruits or mangoes, can be had. There will be no sitting or bedding Laterials. This state of things will continue for twenty
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