Part 14: Death of Puṇḍarīka with a crore of sādhus

One day, wishing to go elsewhere, the Teacher of the World instructed Puṇḍarīka, the lotus of a gaṇabhṛt: “O great muni, we shall set forth to wander elsewhere. You remain here on the mountain, surrounded by crores of munis. Here your omniscience and that of the followers will appear soon from the power of the place. Your mokṣa and theirs will take place soon when you are engaged in śaileśīdhyāna here on the mountain.” Saying “Very well,” the gaṇabhṛt stayed there with crores of sādhus. Leaving him, like the ocean leaving a heap of jewels in the caves in its banks when it overflows, the Lord went elsewhere with his followers.

Puṇḍarīka remained there on the mountain with the munis, like the moon with constellations on the slope of the eastern mountain. Then Gaṇabhṛt Puṇḍarīka had a very strong desire for emancipation because of the Lord’s pleasant speech and said to the ascetics: “This mountain, by the power of the place, is the cause of emancipation for those desiring to gain it, like a fortress advantageous to a border-country. Saṃlekhanā must be made, an efficient surety, indeed, for the accomplishment of salvation. It is two-fold: dravya and bhāva. The complete drying-up of all the elements—the causes of all madness and disease is called dravyasaṃlekhanā. The complete destruction of love, hate, and delusion, and of the passions—the inherent enemies—is bhāvasaṃlekhanā.” After this speech, Puṇḍarīka with crores of ascetics confessed all sins, great and small, and again professed the great vows for the sake of extreme puriy (purity?). Washing a linen garment two or three times makes it extremely clean.

“May all creatures forgive me; I have forgiven them. I have friendship towards all, hostility toward none.” Saying this, he and all the ascetics undertook fasting till death, without any exception to the rules, very hard to do. When he, powerful, was mounted on the kṣapakaśreṇi, his destructive karmas broke like an old rope. At once the destructive karmas of a crore of sādhus snapped. Penance was common to all. At the end of a month, on the night of the full moon of Caitra, omniscience came first to Puṇḍarīka and later to the mahātmas. Engaged in the fourth pure meditation, which is free from activity, all their karmas destroyed, the Yogis went the road to nirvāṇa. The gods came from heaven at once, as they had done for Marudevī, and with devotion made the festival of their attainment of nirvāṇa. Just as the Master, the Blessed Ṛṣabha, was the first Tīrthakṛt, so Mt. Śatruñjaya became the first tīrtha. Wherever even one yati becomes emancipated, that is a purifying tīrtha. How much more where so many great rishis became emancipated. Then the Lord of Bharata had a shrine made on Mṭ. Śatruñjaya of jeweled slabs, rivaling the peak of Meru. Inside it the King erected the Lord’s statue together with the statue of Puṇḍarīka, like intelligence inside the mind.