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great jewels, master of the nine treasures, king of the country that has a girdle of the ocean and Kșudrahimavat, served by the gods of the tirthas, Māgadha, et cetera, you will be the fifth cakravartin, O long-armed one. In that birth you will become the sixteenth Arhat, named śāntinātha, your feet honored by sixty-four Indras. This King Srivijaya will be your first son and also your first gañabhrt in that same birth.”
Then the kings, Srivijaya and Amitatejas, bowed to the king and adopted the twelvefold vows of the layman.
Then Aśanighosa bowed to the great muni Balabhadra and, well-pleased, bent from devotion, spoke as follows: “O omniscient, since I have heard from your lips my own pain arising in a former birth, my mind trembles even now from intentness on that. O Blessed One, by repeated births in birth-nuclei terrible from various and numerous killings, cuttings, and piercings I have experienced many times the consequences of the painful meditation which I made in the Kapila-birth, already described by you, as a result of separation from my wife. Then, my evil karma destroyed by involuntary destruction, finally I attained a human state in a former birth. In that birth also by bad fortune I, an ascetic who had not come in contact with the religion of the Jina, practiced foolish penance which produced much trouble and little result, alas! alas! Because I had made a wish for a reward for that penance, I became a Vidyādhara-king in the city Camaracañcā in this birth, lord. For me the course of penance with a nidāna and of kidnaping another's wife and of the fear caused by the great vidyā Mahājvālā had an auspicious end, since you, who give release from all pain, have been found as a refuge, Teacher of the World. I have wandered through so many births without knowing the religion of the Jinas, like a blind man who does not see an object before him. Now save me! save me! Henceforth, let not a moment pass while I am deprived of yatidharma.287 Olord, give
287 436. See I, n. 38. 15B
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