on around him. A busy farmer bustled past and asked this man who was sitting down and apparently doing nothing to look after his bullocks till his return. Mahāvīra neither heard the request nor saw the animals, far less took care of them. On his return the farmer saw the apparently idle man still seated doing nothing, but could get no answer from him as to the whereabouts of his beasts and had to go off in search of them. The bullocks meanwhile, having eaten their fill, returned and lay down to rest beside the gentle saint. The poor owner searched for the beasts the whole night through, and was enraged on returning next morning to find where they were, for it seemed to him a plot to steal the animals; so he seized their halter and began to beat Mahāvīra with it. Fortunately the god Indra knew what was happening and interfered in time to stop such sacrilege; but he begged Mahāvīra to allow him in future to guard him himself, or to appoint some other god to do so. The saint, however, refused any protection, saying that, just as a Tīrthaṅkara must always obtain omniscience by his own unaided efforts, so must he attain Mokṣa unprotected by any one. But the gods had grown nervous lest Mahāvīra should be killed inadvertently, so Indra, without the saint's knowledge, appointed one Siddhārtha (a cousin of Mahāvīra's who had become a god) to protect him.
- ↑ Also called Jṛimbhilā or Jṛimbhikagrāma.
