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NOTICES OF OTHER TIRTHANKARS.
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CHAPTER VII.
THE HISTORIES OF PÁRSVA, NEMI, AND RISHABA*.
PÁRSVA, the chief of Arhats, was son of King Asvasena, and of his queen Váma, and was born at Varanasi (Benares), in the second month of winter, the tenth day of Pausha. He adopted an ascetic life with three hundred others, when he was thirty years of age, and for eighty days be practised austerities, before arriving at perfect wisdom. He lived after this seventy years, less eighty days, his whole term of life being one hundred years, after which he obtained liberation from passion, and freedom from pain. He wore one garment, and had under his direction a large
* These histories are given with a great deal of prolixity, generally in the very words in which Mahávíra's life is detailed. I have therefore confined myself to the few particulars in which they really differ, and in this I have but carried out a little further the plan of the original; for after a few details, sta is usually added to denote that the other particulars are to be taken from the previous histories.
