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CHAPTER ONE
prince by his own hand and installed him on the throne with a great coronation-festival.
The King, after his initiation-bath had been performed by Vimalakīrti, seated in a palanquin, went to Suri Svayamprabha. Under the best of ācāryas, the best of kings adopted mendicancy together with rejection of all that is censurable. Seated in the chariot of restraint,881 he guarded fittingly his mendicancy like a kingdom from conquest by internal enemies. By means of the twenty sthānakas 382 and other sthānakas also, he increased his own karma named 'tirthakrtnāma.' 383 Not depressed by attacks, rejoiced by trials, he passed his life, like a watchman his watch. After death from fasting he attained the heaven Ānata. Such is a small thing from initiation producing nirvāṇa as a fruit.
Incarnation as Sambhava (103-407)
His parents (103–111) Now, there is a large city, named Śrāvasti, very wealthy, the ornament of the eastern half of Bharata in Jambūdvipa. In it there was a king, suitably named 'Jitāri' from the conquest of his enemies, who was like a moon to the Ocean of Milk of the Ikşvāku-family. Among kings there was no one equal or superior to him like a lion among deer, like an eagle among birds. The King shone with kings installed in the duties of footmen like the moon with planets entering its orbit. He did not say anything not in accordance with dharma ; he did not do anything of the kind; he did not think anything of the kind; he was dharma incarnate, as it were.
While he was king, punisher of criminals, giver of money to the poor, there was neither a wicked nor a poor
881 99. Illustrated in the Sri Silāngādi Rathasangraha. 882 100. See I, pp. 80 ff. 383 101. See I, p. 408.
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