Part 15: Ajita’s mokṣa

Knowing that it was time for his emancipation, when a lac of pūrvas less one aṅga since his initiation-kalyāṇa had passed, the Lord went to Mt. Sammeta. Lord Ajita, seventy-two lacs of pūrvas old, ascended Sammeta like stairs to emancipation. The Teacher of the World together with a thousand ascetics undertook the fast pādapopagama.^[1] Then simultaneously the thrones of the Indras shook, just like branches of garden-trees shaken by the wind. They (the Indras) knew by means of clairvoyant knowledge that it was time for the Lord’s nirvāṇa and went to the peak of Mt. Sammeta. They and the gods circumambulated the Teacher of the World and remained in attendance at his feet like pupils.

When the month of pādapopagama was completed, on the fifth day of the white half of Caitra, the moon being in conjunction with Mṛgaśiras, the Teacher of the World in paryaṅka-posture^[2] restrained gross mind- and speech-activity, like a charioteer checking horses, but continued in gross body-activity. Then the Blessed One checked gross body-activity by means of fine body-activity, like a flood of darkness by a light. Remaining in fine body-activity he checked fine mind- and speech-activity and reached the sūkṣmakriya-meditation.^[3] In the fourth stage of pure meditation, the Lord resorted to the practice of śaileśī^[4] which lasts only long enough to pronounce five short letters. Having the remainder of his karma destroyed and the four infinities^[5] acquired, the Lord, the Supreme Spirit, went to the place of emancipation by a straight path.

The Lord of the World passed eighteen lacs of pūrvas as prince, fifty-three lacs of pūrvas and a pūrvāṅga as a king, twelve years in the vow as an unenlightened ascetic and a lac of pūrvas less a pūrvāṅga and twelve years as an omniscient.^[6] Fifty lacs of crores of sāgaras elapsed between the nirvāṇas of Ṛṣabha and Lord Ajita.