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INTRODUCTION
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and what he did in his previous life to deserve such splendid royal fortune. Thereupon Mahāvira said ($ 197–201):
There lived in Hatthiņāpura a householder Sumuha by name. One day a band of Dhammaghosa monks visited the towb and wanderd from house to house on their begging tour. One of the monks, Sudatta by name, entered the house of the householder Sumuha who received him well and offered him plenty of alms. When good and pure alms were offered to this good monk by Sumuha with the best intention, the duration of his Samsāra was lessened, he was destined to be always born as a human being, and there appeared five miraculous things in his house such as shower of gold eto. In his following birth Sumuha was born as prince ($ 201-207 ). Indrabhūti asked his Master further whether Subāhu was destined to be a monk in this life. Mahāvīra replied 'yes,' and in fact he did one day become a monk under the Order of Mahāvira. Then after studying the eleven sacred books he practised austerities, was destined to be born from heaven to heaven with human life between two heavenly lives, till at last he would attain liberation ( 8 208-213 ).
The narratives of other persons are so similar to the story of Subāhu that we can have these merely by substituting different names of persons and places for those oourring in the story of Subāhu. POONA
P. L. VAIDYA June 1933
