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EIGHTH INCARNATION AS VAJRĀYUDHA
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"Negligence must not be shown," went to the city and installed Sahasrāyudha in his kingdom. When his departurefestival had been held by Sahasrāyudha, he got into the palanquin and went to Jina Kșemankara. Accompanied by four thousand queens and crowned kings and seven hundred sons, he took the vow. Devoted to manifold resolutions, enduring trials, Rşi Vajrāyudha went in his wandering to Mt. Siddhi. With the idea, “I will endure attacks," he, pure-minded, observed pratimā for a year on the pillar, Virocana.
Now Ašvagrīva's sons, Manikumbha and Maņiketu, after they had wandered through the forest of existence for a long time, performed foolish penance once upon a time, were born as asuras, came there just then in the independent wandering they had begun and saw the great sage. Then they began to attack the muni, like buffaloes a tree, because of hostility in his birth as Amitatejas. Becoming lions, they scratched his body on both sides with nails sharp as blades of adamant. Then, having become elephants, they beat him like an antarvedi,827 with blows with their trunks, with blows with their tusks, with blows with their feet hard to endure. Again, becoming serpents, they hung on the sage's sides, firmly bound, like the traces of a cart. Taking a sharp knife resembling their own teeth, becoming Rākşasas, they attacked the muni. While they were attacking the muni in these various ways, the wives of Bidaujas went to worship the Arhat. The goddesses Rambhā, Tilottamā, et cetera, saw the gods making attacks on the muni.
"Oh, wretches! What are you doing to the best of munis !” saying, they descended quickly from the sky. When they saw them descending, the alarmed gods trembled. How long do owls remain in sunlight? The
827 208. Antarvedi seems to be the low wall that is sometimes in an arena for elephant-fights. One elephant is on one side, one on the other. There is a photograph of such an arena in the History of Raj. putana, I, p. 167. Fighting elephants are not always so separated.
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