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Arrival at Aştapada (53-138)
Then one day the Blessed Vṛṣabha-bannered arrived at Mt. Aṣṭāpada in its turn, intent upon benefiting others, favoring people by the destruction of disease for an entire hundred yojanas, like a cloud in the rainy season by allaying the heat; making them happy by the non-appearance of calamities such as flying insects, mice, and parrots, like a king all his subjects by the non-appearance of wrong policy; pleasing the people by the complete extinction of hostilities, temporary and permanent, like the sun by the destruction of darkness; delighting the people by the total absence of pestilence, as formerly by the establishment of customs causing prosperity to all; removing from the world excessive rain and drouth by his power, like indigestion (from overeating) and excessive hunger by medicine; a festival being made on account of his arrival by the people of the country delighted at the removal of fear of their own sovereign and of others, like an arrow inside; protecting the world from famine terrible with universal destruction like a sorcerer protecting people from a Rākṣasa, praised greatly by the people; having a halo surpassing the sun, like an endless light that had become external because it could not be contained within ; made resplendent by the dharmacakra of unequaled splendor going in advance in the sky, like the Cakravartin by the cakra; glorified by a lofty dharma dhvaja in front with a thousand small banners, like a pillar of victory over all the karmas; a festival suitable for the march being made, as it were, by the divine drum playing zealously in the sky of its own accord; made
Jain Education International
872 54. The inclusion of parrots in the list of calamities is somewhat surprising to a European, but in India they come in droves and destroy crops. "The wisdom of the village says that public calamities are seven, and are visitations of God-drought, flood, locusts, rats, parrots, tyranny and invasion." J. L. Kipling, Beast and Man in India.
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