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.MAHAVIRA'S WANDERING AS AN ASCETIC
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these words, shame that I am alive, a vessel of sin. O soul, fickle by nature, why do you still remain! If you do not depart of your own accord, still I will expel you by force at once, Tike a bird from the nest.
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Just as if crushed by her scorn, her breath instantly left her heart broken from distress. When the camelman saw her dead, he thought, "Shame on what I said about this good wife, that she would be my wife. Just as a melon perishes at the mere sight of a finger, so she perished at my harsh speech. In the same way the girl will perish.
With this reflection he spoke to her gently, took her to Kauśāmbi and put her for sale on the king's highway. By chance Sheth Dhanavaha came there, saw her, and thought: Judging from her appearance, she is not the daughter of common people. Lost from her parents, she has been obtained now by the cruel man, like a doe lost from the herd by a wicked hunter. Put up for sale here like meat, the poor girl will fall into the hands of some low person for money. Paying him even a big price I shall take her, an object of compassion. I am not able to abandon her like my own daughter. Staying in my house without misfortune, in due course she will meet her own people.
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So thinking, Dhanavaha paid the price he wished and took the girl, Vasumati, compassionately to his own house. He, pure-minded, asked her: Child, whose daughter are you? What is your family? Do not be afraid. You are my daughter. Unable to tell her family from pride, she said nothing and remained downcast, like a day-blooming lotus in the evening. He said to Shethni Mūlā: 'Wife, she is a daughter for us. She must be guarded and cherished very carefully like a flower. " So by the sheth's order the girl lived in his house like her own house, giving delight to the eye, like a digit of the moon. Delighted by her modest speech and behaviour that were like sandal, the sheth and his attendants gave her the name Candanā. She reached a slight beginning of youth with a thigh like that of a young elephant, giving
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