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string of pearls. I released her, irreproachable, into the hands of my own mother. There is not the least spot on her, not even a moon-spot. I did not even mention anything improper to her. But tell me, Blessed One, the cause of my love for her."
CHAPTER ONE
Kapila's births (394-418)
Then the Blessed One related the story of Satyabhāmā and Kapila, and of Śrīṣena, Sikhinandita, and Abhinanditā. The muni further related: "Śrişeṇa, Abhinanditā, Sikhinandită, and Satya became twins after death. After their death then the four became gods in Saudharma. After falling, Śrīṣena became Amitatejas here; Sikhinandita's soul became his wife, Jyotiḥprabhā; Abhinandita's soul became Śrīvijaya. Satyabhama's soul became Sutārā.
Because Kapila died in painful meditation, he wandered through many birth-nuclei. He destroyed the karma arising from painful meditation by involuntary destruction of karma,284 being reborn again and again in animaland hellish-births. On the bank of the Airavati in the forest Bhutaratna, Kapila became the son, Dharmila, of the ascetic, Jatilakausika, who was devoted to penance, and of his wife, Pavanavegā, like the union of the yoke-pin and the yoke. Cherished by the women-ascetics like a tree in the court of the hermitage, the boy Dharmila gradually grew up.
After taking initiation at the side of his father as a
(Śaiva) ascetic, he began foolish penance, 285 for that was
his father's and mother's kind. In winter on nights terrible from cold he endured a stream of water from a jar with a hole in the bottom, like a mountain rock enduring a stream from a cascade. The sun over his head and blazing fires at his sides-so he endures the five fires at mid-day in summer. In pools dug by himself and filled with rain-water he stood in water up to his neck and
284 399. See above, p. 57, ff.
285 403. Balatapas. See T., VI. 20; K.G., I. 58.
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