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on some dung hill. She therefore called a reliable servant from the palace and instructed her to do away with the child. The servant picked up the child but went first to the king and told him of what the queen had ordered her to do. She further added that she would do whatever the queen had desired, only if the king permitted her.
The king was quite disturbed. He went directly to the queen and persuaded her to change her mind. He pointed out that however shapeless the lump might have been, it still was her first child and if she were to abandon it on a dung hill, her subsequent issues might not be long-lived. Therefore, he entreated the queen to look after the child herself, give it food and drink, so that her future children would have long life. They would take the necessary precautions, the king assured the queen, to see that no body knew about the condition of the child whom they would keep in a secret underground cell and only the queen would visit the child with food and drink.
This is the fate to which the boy Mrgaputra had been condemned for the evil deeds done in the past, concluded Mahavira.
Gautama was curious to know about what Mrgaputra was destined to suffer during the remaining part of his life and what would be his condition like in the future cycles of life. Mahavira answered that the boy was destined to live like this for a period of twentysix years and after death he would be re-born as a lion at the foot of a mountain. He would once again live an impious life as a lion and accumulate several impious deeds. After his death as a lion he was destined to spend one sägaropama period in Ratnaprabha part of the hell. After that period was over, he would come to the earth as a reptile. This would be followed by a long period of life in another part of the hell. So he would be alternating between hell and earth now as a reptile, now as a bird. During the fifth cycle of life from now he would be re-born as a woman followed by another birth as a man.
He would be required to spend several hundreds of thousand years in various categories of lower species like fish and crocodiles, snakes, lizards, birds and plants. He would however be born as a bull in one of the cities on the bank of the river Ganga, during which
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