Part 6: Munisuvrata’s life before initiation

King Sumitra held his son’s birth-festival at dawn, delighting the people by releases from prison and by gifts, et cetera. While he was still in the womb, his mother observed the vows like a muni, so his father gave him the name Munisuvrata. Though his soul was purified by the three kinds of knowledge, pretending lack of knowledge to the people by childish play, the Lord gradually grew up. When he had become a young man, twenty bows tall, he married princesses, Prabhāvatī, and others. Then Queen Prabhāvatī bore a son, named Suvrata, to Lord Munisuvrata, like the east the moon. When seven and a half thousand years had passed, the Lord assumed the burden of the kingdom imposed by his father. The Lord spent fifteen thousand years directing the earth and knew from his knowledge that “Karma which results in pleasure must be consumed.”