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JAINISM
of peace on earth; the third a lifetime of miraculous holiness; and the last the step of the Tirthankara, brcaking the way to the transcendental ceiling of the world.
And so this tale of transformations goes on now to recount, with another sudden shitt of circumstance, how Queen Lakşmivatī, the pure and lovely consort of a certain king named Vajravīrya ("Having the Hcro-Power of the Thunderbolt"), dreamt in one night five auspicious dreams, from which her husband deduced that some god was about to descend to become his son. Within the year she gave birth to a boy, and on his beautiful little body were found the sixty-four auspicious signs of the Cakravartin. He was named Vajranābha ("Diamond Navel"), became proficient in every branch of learning, and in due time began to rule the realm. The world wheel (cakra) o lay among the weapons in his royal treasury in the form of a discus of irresistible force; and he conquered the four quarters of the earth with this weapon, compelling all other kings to bow their heads before his throne. He also acquired the fourteen supernatural jewels that are the marks of the glory of the Cakravartin. And yet, surrounded though he was by supreme splendor, he did not forget for so much as a day the precepts of morality, but continued in his worship of the Tirthankaras and of the living Jaina preceptors-fasting, praying, practicing vows, and performing numerous acts of mercy. A hermit whose name was Kșcmankara therefore came to court; and the Cakravartin, hearing the holy man's delectable words, was released from his last attachment to the world. He renounced his throne and wealth, and departed to practice holy penances in the wilderness, absolutely fearless of the howls of the elephants, jackals, and forest goblins.
But his old enemy had returned to the world, this time as a Bhil, a wild tribesman of the jungle. And in due course the savage hunter chanced upon the place of the meditating former Cf. supra, pp. 128-130.
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