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323
Bahubali becomes a sadhu and attains omniscience
(740-798)
Saying this, noble, first of those acting quickly, with the same fist (raised to strike) he tore the hair out of his head like grass. With joyful exclamations of "Well done! Well done!" the gods rained flowers above Bahubali. He considered, "Shall I take the great vows and go now to my father's lotus-feet? Yet, I will not go, since I would be inferior in rank to my younger brothers who took the vows earlier and possess knowledge. After I have consumed here the destructive karmas by the fire of meditation and have attained kevalajñāna, I shall go to the Master's assembly." Thinking this, proud, he stood in that very spot in kayotsarga, his arms hanging down, like a jeweled image.
When Bharata saw him like that and considered his own wicked actions, he bent his neck as if to enter the earth. He bowed to his brother who was like the emotion (rasa) of tranquillity personified, pouring forth the remains of his anger, as it were, by warm tears from his eyes. Bharata, bowing with the desire to do especial worship to him, was multiplied, as it were, by reflections in the mirrors of his nails. Then he uttered self-reproaches accompanied by praise of the merits of the muni Sunanda's son, the healing-herb for the disease of his evil-speaking. "You are blessed, you who abandon sovereignty through compassion for me. I am wicked since, dissatisfied and arrogant, I attacked you. I am chief of those who misjudge their own power, who commit crime, and who are overcome by greed. People who do not know that sovereignty is the seed of the tree of worldly existence are on the lowest plane. I am distinguished among them, since I do not abandon it, even though knowing this. You alone are our father's son, since you have followed our father's path.
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