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CHAPTER THREE there appeared anger connected with pain, resembling a blazing fire, against these ascetics. I died, blazing with anger, evil-minded.
I became a poisonous serpent in this same forest of the ascetics. One day I approached you to bite, expanding my hood, and you recited the namaskāra which was an obstacle to my course. I was held by the syllables of the namaskāra, which fell within my hearing suddenly, like a pair of tongs and I was not able to go near (you). I entered a cave again, my power destroyed, and, staying there, kept alive by eating living creatures, frogs, et cetera.
One day when it was raining, I heard this dharma being taught by you, o advanced laywoman, to these ascetics: “Whoever injures living creatures incurs pain, wandering unceasingly in this worldly existence, like a traveler in a desert.” Hearing that, I reflected, “I am a serpent, wicked, always engaged in injury to living creatures. What will be my fate?” Again I reflected, “It is known to me by uha and apoha135 that these ascetics have been seen by me somewhere.” Then this spotless memory of my former births arose and I remembered past births like something that happened yesterday. Then imperishable disgust with existence, like canal-water with high waves, rose in me and I observed a fast unto death by myself,
Then after death I became a god in Saudharma. For emancipation is not far away for those who have endured bodily austerities. I am a god, Kusumaprabha by name, enjoying the bliss of heaven in the palace, Kusumasamțddha, by your favor. If your teaching of dharma had not fallen on my ears then, what would have been the fate of me, a boar in the mud of sin ? Recognizing you, (my) benefactor, by clairvoyance, fair lady, I have come here to see you. Henceforth I am like a son of yours.'
After making himself known to Vaidarbhi, the god spoke
135 669. Two divisions of sense-knowledge. Oha is the desire to know more about something; apoha (=avāya) is finding out the facts. See I, n. 248 and HI, p. 339.
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