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THE INITIATION AND OMNISCIENCE OF AJITA
135
The Brāhman said, 'O wife, you are fortunate, since you have taken up right-belief entirely, like a deposit.'
Suddhabhațța then adopted right-belief. For instructors in dharma are merely witnesses to the dharma of the pure-minded. They both became laymen from instruction in right-belief. Even lead and tin may become gold from mercury. In that Brāhman village, the people at that time were without lay-dharma, from absence of contact with monks, and false-belief gradually arose. The people criticized them, saying,' They, evil-minded, have abandoned their inherited religion and have become Jain laymen.' Scorning criticism, they continued to be Jain laymen, and in course of time they had a son, the fruit of the tree of the householder-state.
One day in the cool season the Brāhman took his son and went at dawn to the fire-pan for religious duties which was surrounded by the Brāhman assembly. Saying, * You are a Jain layman. Go elsewhere! Go!' the angry Brāhmans reviled him like an outcaste. And the Brāhmans stood, surrounding the religious fire-pan completely. For their caste-law is jealous. Then embarrassed and angry at their shaming words, in the presence of the assembly he made a vow :
'If the religion taught by the Jina does not lead across the ocean of existence; if the Arhats are not venerable, omniscient, and founders of congregations; if right-knowledge, -belief, and -conduct are not the path of nirvāņa; if there is not right-belief on earth, then may my son be burned. If all that is, may this fire, even though burning, be cool as water to my son. With these words, burning with anger like another fire, the impetuous Brāhman threw his son in the fire. His son is burned by that wretch ! His own son is burned, oh! oh!' The assembly reviled him with such abuse.
A divinity present there, who possessed right-belief, at once threw the child, like a bee, into a lotus. Quickly she took the power of burning from the flame of the fire
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