Trishasti Shalaka Purusa Caritra Part 2

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

Page 34

PREVIOUS INCARNATION AS VIMALAVAHANA
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śraya-posture, some engaged in kayotsarga, and some in ukşa-posture, indifferent to the body, who had carried out their vows in the midst of numerous attacks, like soldiers in battles, victorious over internal enemies, enduring trials, powerful from penance and meditation.
The King, with devotion sprouted in the guise of horripilation, as it were, approached Acarya Arindama and paid homage to him. The best of sūris, his mouth-cloth 19 placed on his mouth, gave him the blessing 'Dharmalabha,' the mother of all good fortune. The King contracted his body like a tortoise from reverence and, avoiding the avagraha-space,20 sat down with hands joined in suppliant manner. The King listened with close attention to a sermon from the Acarya, like Purandara to one from a Tirthankara. The King's disgust with existence was increased by that sermon, like the whiteness of the moon by autumn. After he had paid homage to the Acarya, his hands joined in suppliant manner, the King said in a voice full of rev
erence:
"People, even though experiencing the fruit, which has the form of endless pain, of the poison-tree of saṁsāra, do not attain disgust with the world at all. What caused your own disgust with the world? For it must have been from some particular condition as a cause."
The moon of aācāryas, making white the surface of the sky by the moonlight of the rays of his teeth, graciously replied:
""
Everything in worldly existence is a cause for disgust with the world on the part of the wise, but there is a different occasion for disgust with the world in each case. I, formerly a householder, set out on an expedition of universal conquest, accompanied by the horse-, elephant-, chariot-,
19 90. A mouth-cloth is part of the equipment of every monk. It is supposed to be held over the mouth during speech.
20 91. The distance the length of the body-within which one should not sit before a god or guru. PH, sub uggaha.