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poisonous. So he told Dharmaruci not to eat it, he would quickly lose his life if he did. Therefore he advised him to throw the whole thing away in a secluded place not frequented by men nor by any other living organism. He should go and collect some more food for his own meals. Dharmaruci went out in search of a safe place where he could dump the gourd preparation. In his own way he tried a drop of it on the ground. Quickly a large number of ants were attracted by the smell of it but when they ate it, all of them died on the spot. Dharmaruci thought if a single drop brings about the death of many thousand ants, if the whole of it were left on the ground it would cause the death of innumerable living creatures. It would therefore be proper for me to save the lives of all other creatures by drinking it myself. Let the venom disappear only with my own body. With these reflections, he swallowed the whole of it. The poison gradually entered his body like a snake entering a hole and slowly spread all over. Dharmaruci lost most of his strength. He could hardly move. He knew his end was close at hand. Therefore, ne placed all his possessions in a corner of the park, chose a pure spot of ground on which he made a bed of darbha grass and sat facing the east in a paryanka posture. He folded his hands, rested his head on them and said his prayers to the adorable One, to venerable Dharmaghosa, renounced everything in the world, begged for forgiveness for any injury that he might have caused to any living organism, he confessed whatever faults he had noticed in himself, begged to be forgiven for them and achieved perfect concentration. He soon breathed his last.
Dharmaghosa felt anxious about the long time that Dharmaruci had taken to come back. He therefore asked some of his disciples to find out if anything untoward had happened to Dharmaruci.
They saw, during the course of their search. Dharmaruci in that posture but quite lifeless. They broke out into cries of "Alas! Alas ! What a cruel thing!"
They laid the body in the kāyotsarga posture, ready for the after-death rituals and carried the body to Dharmaghosa.
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