a lotus; his senses were well protected like those of a tortoise; he was single and alone like the horn of a rhinoceros; he was free like a bird; he was always waking like the fabulous bird Bharunda , valorous like an elephant, strong like a bull, difficult to attack like a lion, steady and firm like Mount Mandara, deep like the ocean, mild like the moon, refulgent like the sun, pure like excellent gold ; like the earth he patiently bore everything; like a well-kindled fire he shone in his splendour.

These words have been summarised in two verses:

A vessel, mother of pearl, life, firmament, wind, water in autumn, leaf of lotus, a tortoise, a bird, a rhinoceros, and Bharunda; I

An elephant, a bull, a lion, the king of the mountains, and the ocean unshaken--the moon, the sun, gold, the earth, well-kindled fire. II

There were no obstacles anywhere for the Venerable One. The obstacles have been declared to be of four kinds, viz. with regard to matter, space, time, affects. With regard to matter: in

things animate, inanimate, and of a mixed state; with regard to space: in a village or a town or in a wood or in a field or a threshing-floor or a house or a court-yard; with regard to time: in a Samaya or an Avalika or in the time of a respiration or in a Stoka or in a Kshana or in a Lava or in a Muhurta or in a day or in a fortnight or in a month or in a season or in a half year or in a year or in a long space of time; with regard to affects: in wrath or in pride or in deceit or in greed or in fear or in mirth or in love or in hate or in quarrelling or in calumny or in tale-bearing or in scandal or in pleasure or pain or in deceitful falsehood, &c. (all down to) or in the evil of wrong belief. There was nothing of this kind in the Venerable One. (118)

The Venerable One lived, except in the rainy season, all the eight months of summer and winter, in villages only a single night, in towns only five nights; he was indifferent alike to the smell of ordure and of sandal, to straw and jewels, dirt and gold, pleasure and pain, attached neither to this world nor to that beyond, desiring neither life nor death, arrived at the other shore of the samsara, and he exerted himself for the suppression of the defilement of Karman. (119)

With supreme knowledge, with supreme intuition, with supreme conduct, in blameless lodgings, in blameless wandering, with supreme valour, with supreme uprightness, with supreme mildness, with supreme dexterity, with supreme patience, with supreme freedom from passions, with supreme control, with supreme contentment, with supreme understanding, on the supreme path to final liberation, which is the fruit of veracity, control, penance, and good conduct, the Venerable One meditated on himself for twelve years.