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Shri Mahavir Jain Aradhana Kendra
www.kobatirth.org
Acharya Shri Kailassagarsuri Gyanmandir
290
VAJJĀLAGGAM
[137
the difference between him that receives (favours) from others and him that gives (favours) to others.
14. The Section on Poverty 138) Oh poverty, although self-possessed persons try to conceal the privations and handicaps incidental to you, still they are laid bare (become evident) in the presence of guests, festivals and domestic calamities.
139) Homage to you, oh poverty, because through your favour I have acquired such a miraculous power (riddhi), that all people are visible to me, but I am invisible to them!
140) Oh poverty, you have particular (special) affection (fascination) for those who are virtuous, those who are full of selfrespect and those who have acquired great regard and esteem amongst the learned. How clever and discreet you are!
141) We' come across people who acquire wonderful powers by the practice of Yoga, and also some people who acquire miraculous powers by the use of magic ointments. But here I am, who have acquired a wonderful power by virtue of my poverty, in consequence of which I have become invisible to all the people in the world.
142) Those people who, being struck by the paralysis of prosperity, are not able to plant their footsteps evenly, are, if at all, set right (cured) by the medicine of poverty.
143) What is the use of birth in a noble family or of the virtue of humility or of physical beauty? Who, oh fair one, shows respect (in this world) to people devoid of wealth?
144) Birth in a noble family, beauty of form and learninglet all these three be buried underground (go to dogs). But let wealth alone increase all round, on account of which (all other) virtues become manifest in a person.
145) If in the case of the poor, fate (or providence) counts even those days which they have passed divorced from pious acts,
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