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LIFE OF MAHÁVÍRA.
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again changed his appearance, and assuming an atomic body, he darted with a motion graceful, rapid, willing, exultant, fleet, elegant, in a word, entirely perfect and divine, through seas and continents till he arrived at Jambudrípa, at the house of Rishabha Datta. On entering, he at once saw the worshipful ascetic Mahávíra, and prostrated himself before him. Then having cast Devanandi, with all her attendants and family, into a deep sleep*, having removed all impure matter, he took out what was pure, and without injuring or paining the adorable ascetic Mahávíra, he placed hiin sur rounded with a divine lustre, in the palm of one hand, and covering him with the other, carried him off to the Kshatriya division of Kundagráma, to the house of the Kshatriya Siddhartha, where was his wife Trisalá; having then cast her and her attendants into a deep sleep, without injury or pain, he introduced the adorable ascetic Mahávíra in the womb of the Kshatrayin. When he had performed this service, he returned with a graceful, divine motion through seas and continents, thousands of leagues, till he reached the abodes of the blessed, and entered the heaven of the religioust, where
. * This by the Jains is called Asvápani Nidra, and it is the deepest of the three kinds of sleep which they reckon up, putting one in mind of a mesmeric sleep.
† Called “Sandharmávantaraloka Viman."
