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MAHĀVIRA'S FIRST SIX YEARS AS AN ASCETIC 67 ever, my mind follows you from compulsion, Master. Even so, I know myself received by you, since you look at me with eyes resembling blooming lotuses.” The Lord, devoid of passion, knowing that his nature was capable of emancipation, agreed to his proposal. To whom are great men not kind ?
With Gośāla the Lord went to the hamlet Svarņakhala, his gaze directed six feet ahead on the road. On the road the Mankha's son saw. cowherus cooking rice pudding and said: “I am hungry. Come, let us eat rice pudding.” Siddhārtha said, “ This rice pudding will not reach completion.” Gośāla, malicious-minded, went to the cowherds and said, “ This holy man, who knows the three times, says that this clay-vessel with the pudding half-cooked will burst like a dish of unbaked clay.” The cowherds, frightened, bound the dish with pieces of bamboo and it burst from the swelling of the great quantity of rice that had been put in it. The cowherds took the potsherds and also the pudding. Because of not receiving it, Gośāla accepted completely the doctrine of Fate.
Gośāla's misconduct (419-553)
The Master went to a village of Brāhmans. It had two divisions and their chiefs were two brothers, Nanda and Upananda. To break a fast of two days, the Master entered Nanda's division and Nanda gave him curds and old93 boiled rice. Gośāla entered the other division and seeing Upananda's lofty house, went there, zealous, for alms. At Upananda's order, a slave-girl gave him old boiled rice. As he did not wish that, Gośāla, malicious, cursed Upananda, who said, “If he does not take the food, throw it on his head at once,” and she did so. Angered, Gośāla said: “If my guru has power from penance or a psychic fire may that man's house burn down at once. May the curse from not receiving holy men not be fruitless.” The Vyantaras who were present burned the house like a bundle of straw.
93 420. I.e. rice that has stood after cooking, perhaps overnight.
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