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TRANSLATION
167 398. He attained to paryāpti and saw the manifestation of --
his body and was astonished. He had an intuition of
his former existence and knew this by avadhi-jñāna. 399. 'Aforetime I did not praise the Blessed Lord; now will
I praise him going of my own volition,' so thinking he
set out, but Sakra said these words : 400. “The devotion of Śreņika is fixed on the Jina Mahāvīra
and on no-one else.' So the dardurānka god was
commissioned by the gods to test 401. your devotion. He came and transformed himself into
the semblance of a leper in order to delude your eyes ; :
and coming up to me 402. sprinkled my feet with gośīrşa sandalwood. You ima
gined he was besprinkling them with the purulent
discharge of leprosy'. Then King Śreņika said : 403. When you sneezed my lord, why did he say: die ?'
Said the Jina : 'He spoke these words of devotion to
me as an expression of the real truth: 404. 'why, blessed lord, do you remain in the cycle of trans
migration ? Go to utter nirvāṇa'. To you, king,
he said : 'live', and now listen to the grounds for this. 405. Whilst you are alive you enjoy comfort but when dead
you will have great misery in hell, so live, he enjoined
you. For Abhaya both fates are proper. 406. Whilst alive he enjoys comfort and when dead he will go
to supreme bliss in heaven. So he expressed both
wishes in respect of Prince Abhaya. 407. But he who whilst alive slays many living beings will die
and go to hell : so he said to Kālaśaukarika 'neither
live nor die.' 408. Hearing this the king's heart was filled with sorrow and
he said : With you as my lord shall I go to hell ? ' 409. The Blessed Lord said to the king : Your life was afore
time bound to hell, nor am I your lord, therefore abandon infirmity of will.
