Part 8: Ṛṣabha’s kevala

Independent, unstumbling like the wind, practicing various and manifold penances, persevering in manifold vows, the Blessed One wandered for a thousand years as easily as a day in Mleccha-countries—Yavana, Ḍomba, etc., observing silence, making non-Āryas well-disposed to others just from the sight of him, untouched by disturbances, enduring trials. The Blessed One, Vṛṣabha-bannered, went to Purimatāla, the chief suburb of the great city Ayodhyā. To the north of it was a beautiful grove Śakatamukha [Śakaṭamukha?], that was like a second Nandana, which the Lord occupied. After fasting for four days, standing in meditation under a banyan tree, he attained the guṇasthāna called apramatta.^[1] Then after ascending the apūrvakaraṇa (the eighth), he attained the first pure meditation. Then having attained anivṛtti (the ninth) and sūkṣmasamparāya (the tenth), the Teacher of the World instantly achieved destruction of the passions.^[2] After he had destroyed greed which was instantly precipitated by that very meditation, he was in a state of ‘passions suppressed’ like water cleared by a clearing-nut. Then instantly he reached the second pure meditation, and in the next moment his delusion was destroyed (twelfth guṇasthāna).He destroyed the five knowledge-obscuring karmas,^[3] the four belief-obscuring and the five obstructive karmas—the destructive karmas which remained (at that time). When one thousand years had passed since he took the vow, on the eleventh of the dark half of Phālguna, the moon being in conjunction with Uttarāṣādhā, at dawn the Lord’s omniscience became manifest. It had the three periods of time (past, present, and future) as its sphere and made visible the entire three worlds as if held in the hand. The heavens were gracious; the winds gave comfort; a moment of ease even for hell-inhabitants was produced at that time.