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MAHAVIRA'S FIRST SIX YEARS AS AN ASCETIĆ 61 to them listening. From listening daily to religion, they became bhadrakas;88 and on whatever day the merchant did not eat, they did not eat on that day.
On that day when the bulls did not eat the grass, et cetera, though they were given, the merchant thought: “I fed these bulls for this long from pity. In future they must be fed as brothers and co-religionists.” So the merchant paid especial attention to the bulls every day. For they were not animals in his opinion.
One day there was a festive procession in honor of Yakşa Bhandīravaņa and the young men of the village began the sport of racing draft-animals. A friend of Jinadāsa, very eager, went and took the bulls without asking him. For in friendship there is imaginary possession of identity. The merchant's friend yoked to a cart these bulls, who were white as hen’s-eggs; as much alike as if they were twins; their legs round as balls; their tails like fly-whisks; ready to leap up, as it were, from liveliness; like sons of the wind in speed. Ignorant of their delicacy, urging them on with iron spikes of a goad, astonishing the people, he drove them without pity. With these bulls of peerless speed he defeated at once all the townspeople who had made bets on the racing. He tied the bulls, whose bodies were covered with blood flowing from wounds made by the spikes, broken down, again at the merchant's house and went away.
At the time to feed them, the merchant himself went with a bundle of grass to the bulls like sons. He saw them with their mouths open, weak, tearful, panting deeply, trembling, with blood dripping from wounds by the spikes. He said, “What wretch has taken these bulls, who are dearer than life to me, without asking me and has reduced them to such a state?” Then his servants told him the whole affair of his friend. The merchant felt deep grief as if at the loss of brothers.
The bulls, who had discernment and wished to observe a fast, did not take any at all of the grass and water which the
88 321. They had a tinge of right belief.
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