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YAŠASTILAKA AND INDIAN CULTURE
a certain number of days, during which the king's authority was to be limited to his inner apartments. Bali then began the performance of an Agnihotra sacrifice with intoxicating substances near the camp of Akampana Sūri, with a view to causing annoyance and disturbance to the sage and his followers.
Meanwhile, in the city of Mithila, a Jaina monk named Bhrājişņu, going out at night, inferred from an observation of the stars that somewhere ascetics were being subjected to maltreatment and oppression. Thereupon the head of the monastery with his supernatural knowledge ascertained the mischief being done by Bali, and asked a devotee named Puşpakadeva, capable of travelling through the air, to go and request on his behalf the powerful sage Vişņu to counteract the evil. The latter, on receipt of the message, immediately proceeded to Hastināpura and appealed to king Padma to give the necessary protection to the oppressed monks, but the king pointed out that Bali, and not he, was reigning at the moment.
The sage Vişnu then decided on a crafty manoeuvre. Assuming the form of a dwarf, he went to the place where Bali was performing his sacrifice, and began to recite verses of the Veda in a melodious tone. Attracted by his sonorous voice, Bali came out of the sacrificial pavilion and asked him what he desired. The dwarf replied that, having been robbed of his home by his relatives, he wanted only a slice of land measuring three steps, and on hearing this, Bali at once granted his desire. The sage then discarded the guise of a dwarf and began to extend his frame upwards and downwards and athwart, without any limit. He fixed one step on the foundation of the ocean and another in the sky; and not finding room for a third, placed it on Bali and sent him down to the nether regions.
IX) The evil consequences of drinking are illustrated in the following story. A wandering religious mendicant named Ekapād, arriving at the Vindhya forest from the town of Ekacakra on his way to the Ganges, fell in with a crowd of Cāņdālas, who were indulging in bouts of drinking and partaking of meat in the company of youthful intoxicated women. The Cândālas detained the mendicant, and declared that he must, on the pain of death, either drink wine or take meat or become intimate with a woman. The mendicant reflected that the eating of flesh was strictly prohibited in the Law-books, and so was union with a Cāņdāla woman, but wine was drunk in the Vedic sacrifice Sautrāmaņi, and the ingredients of wine such as flour, water and molasses were quite pure. Thus thinking, he preferred to take wine, but under the influence of drink he joined in the merrymaking of the women; and feeling hungry, partook of meat, and soon passion compelled him to desire the company of one of the Cāņdāla women.
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