When he saw the Master coming, the Heir-apparent instantly ran on foot, outstripping even the footmen. Because the Prince ran without his umbrella and shoes, the assembly, also without umbrella and shoes, ran after him like his shadow. Bounding along in haste, his ear-rings dangling, the Heir-apparent looked as if he were again indulging in childish play before the Master. Sreyansa threw himself at the feet of the Lord, who was in the court of the house, and wiped his lotus-feet with his hair resembling a chauri. Continue reading “The Fast-breaking of the Lord” »

One day, a pair of twins, as they were playing together in accordance with the nature of children, went together under a palm tree. By the evil contrivance of fate, just then a large palm-fruit fell from the tree on the boy’s head like a stroke of lightning on a castor bean plant. Struck on the head in the manner of the crow-and-palm tree fable, the boy died then by the first accidental death. Because he had very slight passions, the boy-twin went to heaven. Cotton indeed rises in the air from its lightness. Formerly, large birds at once lifted up the bodies of dead twins like nest wood, and threw them in the Ocean. At that time, from the deterioration (of the times), the body remained just so. For the avasarpini has decreasing power. Then the second one of the twins, the girl, by nature endowed with innocence, stood with tremulous eyes, like a remnant after a sale. Her parents took her and raised her, and gave her the name Sunanda. After a few days her parents also died. For the twins live but a short time after their children are born. The girl, dazed by wondering what to do, with restless eye, wandered alone in the forest like a deer lost from the herd. Continue reading “The Lord’s Marriage” »

Taking their families and all their retinue and ascending the best of cars, they went to Vaitadhya. They landed on Mt. Vaitadhya which is kissed by the mass of waves of the Lavana Ocean at its borders, placed like a measuring-rod between the east and west quarters; a boundary between the northern and southern parts of Bharata, fifty yojanas wide north and south; buried six and a quarter yojanas in the earth, twenty-five yojanas high; embraced on all sides by the Gangas and Sindhu rivers as if by Mt. Hima with arms stretched out from afar; possessing caves named Khandaprapata and Tamisra that were like houses of pleasure and rest of the Sris of the two halves of Bharata; Continue reading “Description of Vaitadhya” »

While the citizens were playing there in this way, the Master thought, “Is there such sport anywhere else?” Then by clairvoyant knowledge the Master knew the very highest pleasure of heaven and that pleasure of Anuttara-heaven formerly enjoyed by himself. His bonds of delusion dropping away, again he reflected thus: “Alas! these people, overcome by sense-objects, do not know their own good. Ah! in this well of samsara, jivas from their karma perform actions that are nothing more than coming and going like a jar on a water-wheel. Alas! alas! for creatures whose minds are blinded by delusion this birth always passes in vain like the night for those asleep. Continue reading “Attainment of Disgust with Existence” »

Vajranabha, like a brother of Dharma, surrounded by munis, brothers in the vow, wandered over the earth. Bahu and the other brothers and the charioteer had their lord in the Master Vajranabha, like the five senses subject to the mind. By the power of their yoga all the magic powers, phlegm, etc., became apparent like mountain herbs by moonlight. The body of a leper, if rubbed with just a particle of their phlegm, became golden like a heap of copper from kotivedha juice. Continue reading “Eleventh Incarnation as Vajranabha – Part 2” »

Then the Vayukumaras themselves, purged of pride, cleaned the surface of the earth for one yojana. The Meghakumaras sprinkled the earth with fragrant water; by fragrant vapors it made incense worship, as it were, to the Lord who was to come. The Vyantaras covered the surface of the earth with shining mosaics of gold and jewels like themselves with devotion. Continue reading “Description of a Samavasarana” »