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MARRIAGE OF KRŞNA WITH RUKMIŅI AND OTHERS 199 had wives—Nāgaśri, Bhūtaśrī, Yakşaśrī, respectively. Fond of each other, one day they made an agreement that they should all eat in one house in turn.
One day, while they were doing this, when the time came to eat in Somadeva's house, Nāgasri made ready. She cooked many kinds of food and unknowingly cooked a bitter gourd made into a sauce. To find out what it was like, she tasted it and discovered that it was inedible and spit it out at once. Depressed at the thought, “This is still bitter, though I prepared it with many sweet materials,' she put it away. She fed her husband and brothers-in-law and their families, who had come to the house, with other food without this.
Then Ācārya Śri Dharmaghoșa, who was omniscient, stopped with his retinue in the garden Subhūmibhāga. His disciple, Dharmaruci, went to Nāgaśrī's house to break his month's fast, Somadeva and the others being gone. Thinking, 'Let him be satisfied with this,' Nāgaśri gave the muni the gourd-sauce. “I have never received this thing before,' he reflected, went to show the dish, and put it in his guru's hand. The guru smelled its odor and said, “If you eat this, you will die, son. Throw it out quickly. You should break your fast, after obtaining other food with which you are familiar.'
So instructed, he went outside and found a clean bare spot. A single drop of the gourd-sauce fell from the dish by itself and he saw the ants dying, that had been touched by it. He thought: ‘Many creatures are dying, touched by a drop of this. If it is thrown out, how many will die? Is it not better for me alone to die than for a lot of beings? Deciding so, he himself ate the gourd carefully. After he had made ārādhanā, he died, completely absorbed in meditation, and became a chief-god, an Ahamindra, in Sarvārthasiddha.
Now, the Ācārya Dharmaghoṣa instructed the other munis to find out why Dharmaruci was delayed. They saw him dead outside and, taking his broom, et cetera, they went and told the guru, grieving the guru. Then by employing his supernatural knowledge, the guru said, “This was a crime of Nāgasri's
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