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MARRIAGE OF KRŞŅA WITH RUKMIŅI AND OTHERS 191
The mute farmer was brought there at once by the people and was told by the muni: 'Tell your former births from the beginning. Son, father, father, son—such in the usual condition of existence. Therefore, lay aside your shame produced by the relationship in a former birth and give up your silence.' After bowing to the muni, delighted at this agreement with himself, he told his former births in just the same way to all listening. Many became mendicants and the farmer became enlightened; but they (the Brāhmans) were ridiculed by the people and went home, ashamed.
The Brāhmans, being hostile, went at night with swords to kill the muni, but were transfixed at once by the Yakşa Sumanas. At dawn the people saw them and the Yakşa Sumanas told their weeping father and mother clearly: “These wretches, who intended to kill the muni, were transfixed by me. If they become mendicants, I shall release them, not otherwise.' They said, “The sādhudharma is very hard, but we will practice that suitable for laymen,' and the god released them.
From that time they observed the Jina-dharma properly, but their parents did not acknowledge at all the Arhatdharma. Agnibhūti and Vāyubhūti died and became gods in the heaven Saudharma, with a life term of six palyas.193 When they fell, they became the sons of a merchant, Arhaddāsa, in Gajapura, Purnabhadra and Māņibhadra, laymen, as a result of the former birth.
One day a sage, Māhendra, stopped there and Arhaddása became a mendicant, after listening to dharma in his presence. As Pūrņabhadra and Māņibhadra were going to pay homage to Māhendra, they saw a bitch and a candāla on the road and felt affection for them. After they had gone and bowed to the sage Māhendra, they asked, "Who is that candāla and who is the bitch that we felt affection at the sight of them?' He related:
193 178. A palya is an inestimably long period of time. See I, n. 50.
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