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INITIATION, AND OMNISCIENCE OF SRI PĀRSVA
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intention of attacking the Lord. The Lord did not stir from meditation on their account, like the ocean from its boundary.
Then he created vampires holding knives, like clouds with lightning, with projecting teeth, giving loud cries of "Kila! kila!" With pendent tongue and linga like trees with hanging serpents, with long legs and feet, just as if mounted on palmtrees, discharging long flames from the mouth, like a stomach-fire, they attacked the Lord on all sides, like dogs an elephant. The Lord was not shaken by them, absorbed in the pool of nectar of meditation. They too fled somewhere, like owls at dawn.
Then exceedingly angered, the Asura Meghamalin himself created clouds in the sky like the night at the end of the world. Lightning flashed in the sky, terrifying like a tongue of Death; thunder, splitting open the universe, as it were, spread over the skies. A terrible darkness took place, taking away the function of the eye. Heaven and earth became one as if sewed together. With the evil intention, "I will destroy this former enemy," Meghamalin began to rain like a cloud at the end of the world. He beat the earth with streams of water like pestles, or like arrows, as if digging it up with spades. The sleeping birds flew up and flew down from the trees; boars and buffaloes, et cetera moved here and there. Creatures were dragged away by the streams of water terrifying from speed; even big trees were rooted up from the roots.
In a moment the water reached Pārśva Svāmin's ankles; in a moment his knees, in a moment his hips, in a moment his neck at that time. In that wide-spread water, the Lord had the beautiful appearance of the great lotus, the home of Lakṣmi, in the lake Padma. The Master was motionless in the water, like a jeweled pillar, and, his eyes fixed on the end of his nose, did not move at all from his meditation.
When the water reached the tip of Sri Pārśva Svāmin's nose, then the throne of Dharaṇa, the Indra of the Uragas (Nāgas) shook. He knew by clairvoyance, "Oh! Katha,
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