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frequent fasts of several months' duration, practising penances greater than any other practised, always meditating, always striving to realize himself, always sinless and circumspect in thought, in word and in deed. For full twelve years the homeless ascetic wandered from place to place, never staying for longer than a single night in a village or for more than five nights in a town, and only resting during the four months of the rainy season, always bearing with perfect patience and equanimity all kinds of hardship and cruel illtreatment at the hands of his enemies and the savage tribes of Vajrabhumi, Suddhibhumi and Lat or Lār, the countries apparently of the Gonds. As he was thus wandering on his way, the time approached when perfect illumination was to be found. For, in the thirteenth year after his renunciation of the world and initiation as an ascetic, on the tenth day of the bright half of Vaishakha, as he was seated under the shade of a sal tree outside Jrimbhakagrama, on the north bank of the river Rijupalika-a place not very far from the Parshvanatha hills-as he sat there beneath the sacred tree, there dawned on him the light which he had been born into the world to discover; there came to him, in that silent hour of deep meditation, the mighty awakening which made him the enlightened, the omniscient, the all-knowing, which told him of sorrow, of the cause of sorrow, of the cure of sorrow, and of the path which leads beyond it. The bonds of Karma-the enemies to enlightenment, wisdom and salvation-were snapped like an old rope; and the Kevala Jnana-the only knowledge
