Trishasti Shalaka Purusa Caritra Part 6

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

Page 120

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CHAPTER THREE
and stood in statuesque posture in a garden. It was then the month Māgha. There was there a female demon, Bāṇamantārikā, who had been the Lord's wife, Vijayavati, in the Triprștha-birth. She died in anger, entirely discontented. After wandering through births and attaining a human birth, she practiced “fool's-penance.” Having become a Vyantari from that, unable to bear the Master's splendor because of former hostility, she assumed the form of a female ascetic first. Her hair matted, wearing a bark garment, she wet her body with icy water and stood over the Lord of the World. Then she created a wind and shook her limbs like a porcupine. Drops of water hard to endure fell, like porcupine quills, on the Jina. The drops of water, falling from the ends of the matted hair and from the edges of the bark garment, pained the Lord. If it had been any other man, he would surely have burst at that time.
The Lord's religious meditation (dharmadhyāna), which is especially destructive of karma, burned during the night as he endured the calamity of the cold. Sri Virasvāmin's clairvoyance, like that of an Anuttara-god, became very strong, beholding the entire world. So great clairvoyance was inherent in a god-birth. The last Arhat had knowledge of the text and meaning of the eleven Angas. At daybreak the female demon, calmed and repentant, worshipped the Lord with devotion and went to her own place.
Then the Lord went to the city Bhadrikā and remained to pass the sixth rainy season since his initiation, practicing penance. After six months, Gośāla met the Teacher of the World there and gave service daily as before, delighted in his heart. The Lord observed a fast of four months combined with many vows. At the end of the rainy season, he broke his fast outside the city.