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CONSOLIDATION
OF THE BUDDHA'S RELIGION.
XXX.
JIVAKA, THE PHYSICIAN.
LONG before the Blessed One had attained enlightenment, self-mortification had been the custom among those who earnestly sought for salvation. Deliverance of the soul from all the necessities of life and finally from the body itself, they regarded as the aim of religion. Thus, they avoided everything that might be a luxury in food, shelter, and clothing, and lived like the beasts in the woods. Some went naked, while others wore the rags cast away upon cemeteries or dungheaps.1
When the Blessed One retired from the world,
