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INITIATION, AND OMNISCIENCE OF ŚRI PĀRSVA 381 possessor of three kinds of knowledge, spade for the ground of karma, virtuous. Homage to you, receptacle of all the supernatural powers, possessing unlimited compassion, receptacle of all magnificence, supreme spirit. Homage to you whose passions are far removed, the Ocean of Milk of joy, free from love and hate, on the way to emancipation. If there is fruit from service at your feet, Supreme Lord, then may I have this alone-devotion to you in birth after birth."
After praising the Arhat thus, he took him and put him down near Vāmā; and he took away the sleeping-charm and the Arhąt's image. Then Sakra went to his own place.
Childhood (43–52)
At dawn Aśvasena held his son's birth-festival accompanied by releases from prison, et cetera. While he was still in the womb, his mother saw a serpent creeping at her side on a dark night and at once told her husband. Recalling that and deciding, “That was the power of the embryo," King Aśyasena gave his son the name Pārsva. The Lord of the World, cherished by nurses appointed by Indra, grew up in course of time, going from lap to lap of the kings. Nine cubits tall, he gradually reached youth, a pleasure-grove of Love, a charm for (attracting) women. From the blue color of his body Pārsva looked as if made from the essence of blue lotuses, or rather, of the Sris of blue lotuses. Long-armed, the Lord looked like a tree with long branches; and having a broad, firm chest, he looked like an immovable mountain. From his hands, feet, face and eyes, Aśvasena's son had the beautiful appearance of a pool with a bed of blooming lotuses. Marked with the thunderbolt, et cetera, slender-waisted, flat-bellied, the Lord had mortise, collar, and pin joints.338 After seeing the Lord with such beauty, goddesses reflected, “They are blessed on earth, whose husband he will be."
333 31. The best kind of joints. See I, n. 133.
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