Trishasti Shalaka Purusa Caritra Part 1

Author(s): Hemchandracharya, Helen M Johnson
Publisher: Oriental Research Institute Vadodra

Page 379

358
had a shrine made on Mt. Satruñjaya of jeweled slabs, rivaling the peak of Meru. Inside it the King erected the Lord's statue together with the statue of Puņdarika, like intelligence inside the mind.
The Lord's congregation (450-458) Wandering in various countries, the Blessed One favored people by the gift of enlightenment like the blind by the gift of an eye. At the time of the Lord's omniscience there were eighty-four thousand ascetics, three hundred thousand nuns; three hundred fifty thousand laymen, and five hundred fifty-four thousand laywomen; four thousand seven hundred fifty of those knowing the fourteen pūrvas; nine thousand sādhus who had clairvoyant knowledge; twenty thousand sādhus who possessed kevala ; twenty thousand six hundred noble ascetics who had the vaikriya-labdhi; twelve thousand six hundred and fifty each of disputants and those having manaḥparyaya; twenty-two thousand mahātmas to be reborn in the Anuttara-palaces, (in the congregation) of the Lord of the World. Thus the Blessed One, the first Tirthakrt, established the fourfold congregation in dharma, as well as his subjects in customs.
Rşabha's nirvāṇa (459-493) When he had performed penance for a lac of pūrvas from the time of his initiation, knowing that it was time for his own mokşa, the Lord went to Aştāpada. He went gradually to Mt. Aştāpada with his retinue, and the Lord ascended it like stairs to the palace of niryāņa. Together with ten thousand munis the Lord undertook pādapopagama with a seven days' fast. The mountain-guards went quickly and announced to the Cakrin Bharata that the Lord of All was thus engaged. When he had heard about the Lord's rejection of fourfold food, he was pierced by grief like a nail that had entered his body. Then at once touched by a great fire of grief he shed tears