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62. Dhanamitra And His Son
In the city of Ujjayini, there lived a merchant named Dhanamitra. His son was called Dhanasarmă. Both of them took to renunciation and became monks.
Once with a group of monks Dhanamitra and his son started on a journey to the city of Elakāksa. As they were trecking, Dhanasarma felt extremely thirsty, even then he walked on in the company of the monks and the father walked just behind him watching him with fatherly affection and tenderness. They all came to a small river but the monks walked ahead but Dhanamitra who knew that his son was thirsty, asked him to drink the water of the river. He himself crossed the rivulet and went ahead to join the group of the monks that had walked past. Dhanamitra deliberately left the son behind so that he need not be afraid of being watched while he was drinking water. The father waited for some time for his son. But, the son did not drink even a drop of water and indeed he was not supposed to drink it because of the possibility of killing the innumerable micro organisms, called the water-souls here that lived in it. The very idea of killing them was as hateful as poison to Dhanasarma's mind. Instead he killed his desire to drink water but poor fellow died of thirst. As soon as he died, he was re-born as a god who employed his avadhijñāna and entered the dead body of the boy and followed the old man Dhanamitra. The father was happy to see that his son was following him.
As they were all proceeding on their travel, the god in Dhanasarmā created herds of cattle around the monks and the monks had the pleasure of drinking buttermilk that they obtained from the keepers of the cattle. As they went on, the god in
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