Part 21: Further attacks

The Master went to a shed in Viśālī which belonged to a smith and, after obtaining permission from the people occupying it, stood in statuesque posture. The smith had been sick for six months and had recovered. On an auspicious day, attended by his family, he went to the shed. When he saw the master in front of it, he thought: “The sight of a heretic on the first day is a bad omen for me. I shall destroy this bad omen here and now.” He, malicious, picked up an iron hammer and ran to kill the Master. Just then Maghavan employed clairvoyance to know, “Where is the Master,” saw the smith on the point of killing him, and went there. Hari made the hammer fall on his own (the smith’s) head by his power and he went to Yama’s abode by some means, though he recovered from sickness. After bowing to the Master, Śakra went to the heaven Saudharma.

The Master arrived at the hamlet Grāmāka. The Lord stood in kāyotsarga in the temple of Yakṣa Bibhelaka in the garden Bibhelaka. The Yakṣa had a trace of right-belief from a former birth and, penetrated by affection, worshipped the Lord with divine flowers, unguents, et cetera.

The Lord of the Three Worlds went to the village Śāliśīrṣa and stood in statuesque posture in a garden. It was then the month Māgha. There was there a female demon, Bāṇamantārikā, who had been the Lord's wife, Vijayavatī, in the Tripṛṣṭha-birth. She died in anger, entirely discontented. After wandering through births and attaining a human birth, she practiced “fool’s-penance.” Having become a Vyantarī from that, unable to bear the Master’s splendor because of former hostility, she assumed the form of a female ascetic first. Her hair matted, wearing a bark garment, she wet her body with icy water and stood over the Lord of the World. Then she created a wind and shook her limbs like a porcupine. Drops of water hard to endure fell, like porcupine quills, on the Jina. The drops of water, falling from the ends of the matted hair and from the edges of the bark garment, pained the Lord. If it had been any other man, he would surely have burst at that time.

The Lord’s religious meditation (dharmadhyāna), which is especially destructive of karma, burned during the night as he endured the calamity of the cold. Śrī Vīrasvāmin’s clairvoyance, like that of an Anuttara-god, became very strong, beholding the entire world. So great clairvoyance was inherent in a god-birth. The last Arhat had knowledge of the text and meaning of the eleven Aṅgas. At daybreak the female demon, calmed and repentant, worshipped the Lord with devotion and went to her own place.

Then the Lord went to the city Bhadrikā and remained to pass the sixth rainy season since his initiation, practicing penance. After six months, Gośāla met the Teacher of the World there and gave service daily as before, delighted in his heart. The Lord observed a fast of four months combined with many vows. At the end of the rainy season, he broke his fast outside the city.