Trishasti Shalaka Purusa Caritra Part 6

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

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CHAPTER EIGHT arrived at the city Śrāvasti one day and stopped in the garden Kośțaka outside. One day while there he developed a bilious fever from food and drink which were tasteless, cold, harsh, scanty, and eaten at the wrong time. Unable to stand, sitting like a stake in mud, he said to his disciples, “Make a bed for me." The sādhus began to make a bed. Disciples execute the guru's order like servants a king's order.
Suffering very much from the bilious humor, he asked again and again, “ Is the bed spread or not? Say, sādhus.” The sādhus said, “The bed is spread," and Jamāli, sick, got up and went to them. When he saw that the bed was being spread, he sat down from bodily weakness and, angry, said to the sādhus because of false belief that had arisen:
“ Sirs ! We have been in error for a long time. At last this truth is known. What is being done is not done. Only when it is done is something done. The bed, being spread, was described as 'spread.' It certainly is not proper for you to say that which is not true. The Arhat says, 'What is being produced, is produced; what is being done, is done.' That is obviously not possible because of its inconsistency. In the case of an act that is being produced by the activity of a collection of moments earlier and later, how can it be said even in the beginning, “It is done '? There is the state of being an object of that alone of which there is creation of the function of an object; that does not exist in an object produced in the beginning. If one says, “ It is done' even in the beginning, then surely non-finality follows in the doing of a thing done in the remaining moments. This is clearly in accordance with that reasoning: That which is actually done is done. No one gives a name to an unborn son. Then, munis, agree with what is obviously infallible. Do not accept something because “It was said.' What is in accord with reasoning is accepted. “The Arhat, described as “ Omniscient,” can not speak falsely. It is not so. He does speak falsely. There is stumbling even of the great." - The elders said to Jamāli, who was talking so, the bounds