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ŚREŅIKA, MEGHAKUMĀRA AND NANDIŞEŅA 147 à camel and went to the city Rājagpha.
When the king saw him, delighted, with tears of joy he installed him on the throne with pure water in golden pitchers. Thinking of Jina Pārsva and the formula of homage to the Five, having resorted to the four refuges, the king died and went to heaven. .. Then Sreņika supported the whole burden of the world and Nandā, who was pregnant and deserted by him, supported the embryo hard to carry. She had a pregnancy-whim: “I wish that, mounted on, an elephant, bestowing benefits by great wealth, I may give freedom from fear to creatures.” After asking the king, her father gratified the pregnancy-whim. At the completed time, she bore a son, like the East bearing the sun. On an auspicious day the maternal grandfather gave him the name Abhayakumāra, in conformity with the pregnancywhim.
He grew up gradually and learned the unobjectionable sciences and, when he was eight years old, was skilled in the seventy-two arts. During a quarrel a playmate ridiculed him from anger, “Why do you, whose father, look! is not known, talk?” Abhayakumāra said, “ Bhadra is certainly my father.” He replied to Abhaya, “ Bhadra is your mother's father.” Abhaya said to Nandā, “Mother, who is my father?” Nandā replied, “This Sheth Bhadra is your father. " “ Bhadra is your father. Please name my father.” So told by her son, Nandā unwillingly said:
“I was married by a man who came from a foreign country. While you were in my womb, some camel-riders came to him. He talked to them secretly and went away somewhere with them. Even now I do not know who he was.”
“So I am a person of unknown origin. When he went with them, did he say nothing at all to you?” Questioned by Abhaya she showed the letter, saying, “ These words were handed over.” Abhaya understood it, and delighted, said: “My father is king in Rājagļha. Now we are going there certainly.” They bade farewell to Sheth Bhadra and with all
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