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PREVIOUS BIRTHS OF PARŠVANĀTHA
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money by a rich man, as I did not take initiation. Now, what can I, an animal, do?"
Thus meditating, his mind firm in his guru's teaching, he continued passing the time, comfortable in pleasant and unpleasant circumstances.
Kamatha's second incarnation (104-115)
Now, Kamatha, unappeased by the murder of Marubhūti, not being made to speak by the guru, blamed by the other ascetics, died, engaged in especially painful meditation; he became a kukkuța-serpent 326 and roamed, destroying creatures like a winged Yama. One day as he roamed he saw the Marubhuti-elephant drinking pure water heated by the sun's rays in a pool. He happened to be mired in mud at that time and was unable to get out because of his emaciation from penance and he was bitten on the boss by the kukkuṭa-serpent. Knowing his own death (at hand) from the stream of the poison, the elephant rejected the four kinds of food, engaged in concentrated meditation.
-Marubhuti's third incarnation (109)
Recalling the homage to the Five, engaged in pious meditation, he died and became a god in Sahasrara with a life-term of seventeen sägaras.
Varuna's third incarnation (110-115)
The cow-elephant Varuņā practiced very severe penance, so that she became a goddess in the second heaven, after death. There was no god in Iśāna whose heart was not won by her wealth of fascinating beauty and grace. But she did not pay any attention to any god at all, absorbed in thought of meeting the god with the soul of the elephant. The god with the soul of the elephant had great affection for her and, knowing by clairvoyance that she was in love, had her brought to Sahasrara.
326 105. Part serpent and part cock. See III, n. 276,
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