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248
CHAPTER TWO
Previous incarnation of Kanakaśrī (252-289) “There is a flourishing village, Sankhapura, in east Bharata in the continent Dhātakīkhanda. A woman lived there, named Sridattā, afflicted with poverty, who earned a living by working in other people's houses. She spent the whole day in threshing, grinding, carrying water, sweeping the house, smearing the house (with cow-dung), et cetera. She took her food after the whole day had passed. Verily, her lot was a miserable one, like the sight of an owl.
One day in her wandering she came to a mountain, Śrīparvata by name, which resembled the mountain of the gods (Meru) in beauty. There she saw a great muni, named Satyayaśas, seated on a crystal rock,306 purified by the three controls, undefeated by trials hard to resist like ghouls, with the five kinds of carefulness unbroken, with an immeasurable wealth of penance, free from worldly interest, free from affection, tranquil, who regarded gold and a clod as the same, engaged in pure meditation, motionless as a mountain-peak. When she saw him like a kalpa-tree, delighted, she bowed to him. He gave her the blessing 'Dharmalābha,' a pregnancy-whim of the tree of emancipation.
Sridattā said to him: 'Judging from such a miserable condition (as mine), I did not practice dharma at all in a former birth. To me constantly consumed by painful work like a mountain burned by summer heat, your speech “Dharmalābha" was like rain. Even if I, unfortunate, am not suitable for it, nevertheless this speech of yours is unerring. Give me some instruction for good fortune. Do something so that I shall not be so (ill-fated) again in another birth. With a protector like you, why should not the thing desired take place, protector ?'
806 257. Two MSS have silam in the place of Osinam and I suspect it is the correct reading, with a play on silā and sila.
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