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BOOK I, LECTURE 8, LESSON 1.
79
EIGHTH LECTURE,
(CALLED)
THE PILLOW OF RIGHTEOUSNESS.
First LESSON. As I have heard it, I shall tell how the Venerable Ascetic, exerting himself and meditating, after having entered the order in that winter, wandered about?,
'I shall not cover myself with that robe 3,' only in that winter (he used it). He had crossed (the sansâra) for the rest of his life. This (refusing of dress) is in accordance with his doctrine. (1)
More than four months many sorts of living beings gathered on his body, crawled about it, and caused pain there. (2)
For a year and a month he did not leave off his robe. Since that time the Venerable One, giving up his robe, was a naked, world-relinquishing, houseless (sage) (3)
Then he meditated (walking) with his eye fixed on a square space before him of the length of a
1 The commentators call this passage a sloka, though only the beginning of it looks like a pâda, the rest showing no metrical law. The beginning of the last passage looks also like the first pâda of a sloka; but the rest requires some violent alterations to answer the metrical laws of a sloka.
9 The divine robe given him by Indra.
* The commentator says that this happened at the Suvarnabaluka river.
