Trishasti Shalaka Purusa Caritra Part 6

Author(s): Hemchandracharya, Helen M Johnson
Publisher: Oriental Research Institute Vadodra

Page 112

CHAPTER THREE
went to the city Pṛṣṭhacampā to pass the fourth rainy season. Observing a four-month fast, standing in statuesque posture repeatedly, the Lord of the World remained there four months. After he had broken his fast somewhere outside on the last day of the rainy season, the Lord of Three Worlds went to the town Kṛtamangala. Heretics, called Daridrasthaviras,98 who had big enterprises and property, lived there with wives and children. In their section of town there was a large temple adorned with statues of their hereditary family-gods. In one corner of that temple, motionless as one of its pillars, the Lord stood in kayotsarga, absorbed in meditation.
At that time in the month of Magha the cold at night was very hard to endure. A great festival of these heretics took place in the temple. They gathered in the temple together with their sons, et cetera joyfully and danced and sang and kept watch. Gośāla said with laughter: Who are these heretics, alas! whose wives drink wine, sing, dance, et cetera publicly?" Angered at hearing that, they seized Gośāla by the neck and expelled him at once from the temple like a dog. Gośāla stood crouched down from the cold like the letter aitch, making music with his teeth like a lute-player on a lute. They took pity on Gośāla and let him enter again; and, warmed in a few minutes, he talked in the same way again. He was put out again and again allowed to enter. From anger and pity for him, they did this three times.
When Gośāla entered the fourth time, he said: "Why are you of little wit angry at the mention of true facts? Why are you, heretics, not angry at your own misconduct? Why do you try to injure me repeatedly because I speak clear facts? The young heretics got up with the intention of beating him, but their elders restrained them and said firmly:
"He may be the stool-bearer or umbrella-bearer or some other attendant of the holy man, a heap of penance, a
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98 490. Literally, 'poor and old.' The Rajendra. has no additional information about them.
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