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EMANCIPATION OF AJITA SVĀMIN AND SAGARA
183
Then from desire for my son I wandered daily to every house like a lost child, asking for that and being laughed at. All the people questioned told in every house of dead past number. There was no house without death. With hope crushed by its non-attainment, my mind lost like a dead man, miserable, I declared all that to the family-deity. The deity said, “If there is no auspicious house, how am I able to protect you from inauspiciousness ?'
Urged on by that speech of the deity like an elephantgoad, wandering to every village, to every city, I came here. You are known as the comforter of the whole earth. There is no rival to you, first among the powerful. Even the Vidyādharas, living in the two rows (of cities) inaccessible on Mt. Vaitādhya, take your commands on their heads like wreaths. Even the gods always execute your orders, like servants. The treasures constantly offer you desired objects. So I have come to you as a refuge, you the sole bestower of comfort on the poor. Bring for me the fire from some auspicious house, that the familydeity may bring my son though dead, since I am grieved at my son's death."
The King, though knowing the true nature of existence, being subject to compassion was grieved by his grief and said, after reflecting a little :
“My house is as much superior to all the houses on this earth, as Sumeru to mountains. In this was the Blessed Rsabha Svāmin, who had unequaled rule in the three worlds, the first of the Tirthanāthas, the first of kings, able to make an umbrella out of the earth, raising it by his arm, making a handle of Amarācala a lac of yojanas high, the nails of whose feet were sharpened by the crowns of sixty-four Indras. (yet) he died in course of time.
His first son, the first cakravartin, Bharata by name, whose commands were always carried on the head by gods and asuras, who shared the seat of the Puruhūta of Saudharma, in course of time reached the end of his life.
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