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112
SHRAMAN MAHAVIR
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The news of Indrabhuti's initiation spread across the town in an instant Agnibhuti and Vayubhuti also held a conference They felt that the snare in which their brother was caught could not have been an ordinary one However, efforts were warranted to rescue him
Agnibhuti duly attended by his five-hundred disciples sought to redeem Indrabhut from the great wizard who had weaned him away from his hereditary faith The people were anxiously watching the outcome They sounded one another about the possible result. Whether Indrabhuti would free himself from the shramana net and return to his earlier fold or it will entrap Agnibhuti as well? Some conjectured that the two brothers will be more than a match for Mahavira and may even convert him Others vehemently contested it Said they, 'Did Indrabhuti lack anything in scholarship? It is no less than a super-human miracle The intellectual attainments of anybody who approaches the shramana chief are eclipsed instantaneously The thinking process is arrested We anticcipate in all certainty the imminence of the plight for Agnibhuti that his brother has already suffered.
Agnibhuti was being mentioned everywhere Over hearing several comments he reached the outhouse of Mahasena garden He suffered an experience akın to the one Indrabhuti had done earlier He entered where the preaching was going on The Lord accosted him as he did his brother, 'You have come, Gautama Agnibhuti!
Agnibhuti was astonished to be addressed by his name and patronymic by a stranger He was a victim of a spate of ideas He was flabbergasted The Lord made a frontal attack on his bewilderment, saying, 'Agnibhuti you have doubts about karma Is it not so ?'
Agnibhuti exchanged a glance with Indrabhuti It appeared that he was seeking some directive from his brother But what could the brother advise? He had inadvertently bowed down his head in devotion Said he, My Lord! when my secret doubt has been made public, so should its solution bel
