Trishasti Shalaka Purusa Caritra Part 2

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

Page 244

EMANCIPATION OF AJITA SVĀMIN AND SAGARA 219 study the royal muni was superior even to mendicants of long standing. His brilliant omniscience arose from the destruction of the ghāti-karmas, like the light of the sun from the destruction of cloudy weather.
The congregation of Ajita Svāmin (665-670) As Ajita Svāmin wandered as a mendicant over the earth from the time of his omniscience, he had ninetyfive excellent gaṇabhrts. There were a hundred thousand monks, three hundred and thirty thousand nuns, thirty seven hundred who knew the pūrvas, twelve thousand four hundred and fifty who had mind-reading knowledge, and ninety-four hundred with clairvoyant knowledge, twentytwo thousand omniscients, twelve thousand four hundred disputants, twenty thousand four hundred who had the art of transformation, two hundred and ninety-eight thousand laymen, and five hundred and forty-five thousand laywomen (in the retinue) of the Teacher of the World 368
Avata's moksa (67I-685) Knowing that it was time for his emancipation, when a lac of pūrvas less one anga since his initiation-kalyāņa had passed, the Lord went to Mt. Sammeta. Lord Ajita, seventy-two lacs of pūrvas old, ascended Sammeta like stairs to emancipation. The Teacher of the World together with a thousand ascetics undertook the fast pādapopagama.360 Then simultaneously the thrones of the Indras shook, just like branches of garden-trees shaken by the wind. They (the Indras) knew by means of clairvoyant knowledge that it was time for the Lord's nirvāṇa and went to the peak of Mt. Sammeta. They and the gods circumambulated the Teacher of the World and remained in attendance at his feet like pupils.
369 670. The Pravac. 331 ff. gives some slight variations in these figures.
360 673. See I, n. 126; and infra, App. I.