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114. THE GUIDE THAT MISGUIDES
It happened in a town called Vasantapura. An ācārya set up his asrama there but he was not really qualified for what he was doing. Nevertheless, he managed to collect some disciples. One of them indulged in irregularities of behaviour and even accepted as alms things that monks are just not supposed to. But the young man was honest enough to confess to his ācārya the sinful things that he did and the acārya felt impressed by the sincerity of his erring disciple. The acărya himself did not possess reliable knowledge of the holy scriptures and as such he could easily justify his disciple's behaviour. The other disciples also got an impression that the only way to live well was to do everything that one liked but follow it up with a candid confession to the acärya .
It so happened that a highly qualified and meticulously disciplined acārya arrived there in the asrama and when he saw the way it was being run, he felt greatly shocked. In order to draw their attention to the indisciplined behaviour, he told the following story :
In the town of Girinagara there was a jewel merchant. His house was packed with all sorts of precious stones, particularly rubies. Whenever he lit a lamp in the house, the light reflected so much that the people in the town felt that it looked brighter and more dazzling in his house because he was a great worshipper of the God of Fire. Once it so happened that when the merchant lit the lamp in his house, a strong current of wind blew in and the whole of the house caught fire. The fire spread over the entire town and everything was burnt to ashes. The king expelled the merchant out of the town.
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